Asset Series 2: See No Evil
by shadowglove
Summary: Sequel to Hallowed Ground. A year has passed since Hope. Lois just wanted to keep an eye on her supposedly healing little cousin. Dean just wanted to check up on the two girls he hasn't been able to put out of his mind. No one really knows what Chloe's really after. But when they're trapped in the decayed Luthor Castle with a murderous lunatic things like that don't really matter.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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A year had passed since the scarecrow incident in the now completely destroyed and abandoned Hope. A year since Preacher Hathaway had not only proven himself to be their ancestor, but to be an incestuous bastard. A year since they'd been left with the mystery of why Hope had just _combusted_ the way it had. A year since Chloe had started a slow yet sure recuperation from the trauma her psychotic mother had given her when she'd driven a knife deep into her heart, twice. A year since Lois had started MetU and moved into the guest room in Uncle Gabe's home. A year since they'd last seen Dean Winchester.

A year.

So much could happen in that amount of time, it was _insane_.

The only thing that seemed the same was her dark brown hair and preference for dark colored lipstick.

That, and the fact that Chloe kept getting her into the weirdest situations.

"What in the _world_ made you think this was a good idea?" The brunette wanted to know, staring at the poster in her hand for the hundredth time since finding out that her cousin had signed them up without her knowledge. "Its my first long weekend in _months_. I do _not_ want to be spending it in some creepy, gross place with strangers..._cleaning_." With a flick of her wrist she sent the flyer flying away. "If this Luthor guy is as loaded as everyone says, why can't he just hire some professional cleaning crew?"

"Because he wants to provide jobs for the younger people in Smallville, and he knows that he needs to get as much public support as he can because from what I hear from the gossip mill _no one_ really likes him. I really think this is a PR thing because there's no way our group could clean up the whole place in one long weekend...I'm sure after we're gone he'll bring in a professional cleaning crew to do the real gritty work." Chloe pursed her lips, wearing capri shorts and a sleeveless shirt with a high neck, still in the business of hiding the intersecting scars over her heart. "And anyway, I know that the thought of scrubbing someone else's toilet is disgusting, but think about all we could _discover_ about the place! No one's been allowed in the Luthor mansion since the Luthors left it all those years ago, and from what I hear it was filled with _incredible_ stuff. Most of the _interesting_ shindigs in Smallville history were thrown there, and get this, when the big meteor shower hit, they say one of the biggest meteor chunks _totaled_ the place...meaning it had to be reconstructed. Some people say that some of the stones used were pieces of meteor rocks themselves."

Already this was sounding like a _horrendous_ idea. "So you want to be trapped in an isolated mansion which is allegedly built with material which not only has given some of the townspeople super powers, but driven insane as well?"

"We wouldn't be _trapped_." Chloe unzipped her empty duffel bag before going to her drawers to shuffle through her clothes. "It makes sense that Mr. Luthor would want the place on lockdown. As I said before, there are some _incredible_ stuff there. I wouldn't want some kids stealing my crap either. And its not _so_ isolated...we could _walk_ back to town if push came to shove and someone went batshit crazy." She wasn't making her argument any more convincing with that declaration. "Anyway, I doubt that four days proximation to rocks that might not even _there_ will drive anyone insane." She grabbed a fistful of panties and twisted around to throw them into her duffel bag, returning to her drawer to browse through her bras. "_And_, most importantly, the pay is _disgustingly_ generous."

"How disgusting are we talking about?" Finally, there was something in this whole deal which was appetizing.

"Remember that little thing you keep wanting to buy and can't because it's too expensive?" Chloe held up a black bra with bright green skulls on it. "It wouldn't be too expensive after the long weekend."

Lois perked at that, grinning. "You know you could have just saved yourself that whole defense by uttering those couple of words."

"I know, but they were valid issues which would have been brought up sooner or later anyway so I figured I should address them as soon as possible." Chloe flashed her a cheeky smile.

"So...how does the Torch factor into all of this?" Lois asked, knowing her cousin too well to believe that Chloe was doing this for the paycheck.

There _were_ toilets involved for crying out loud.

Her fifteen year old cousin flushed guiltily. "A murder _might_ have taken place there and was covered up?"

"_Chloe_." Lois groaned, palming her face as she threw herself back against her cousin's bed. "The last time we were involved in unsolved murders I was nearly hung on a cross and you were two seconds away from becoming a virgin sacrifice."

"It has no religious overtones, I promise!" The teenager came towards Lois, clutching her bra to her heart. "The family butler was found hanging with his eyes completely gone but they attributed it to some freak heart attack suffered while he was just hanging there popping the eyes out...despite the fact that there were no evidence of popped eyeballs anywhere. It was all hushed up and swept under the rug."

"Why can't you be like other girls your age and be into Justin Bieber?" Lois bewailed.

Rolling her eyes in amusement, Chloe continued her packing, humming "Paint It Black" to herself.

Peeking through her fingers, Lois sighed as she shook her head, darkly amused and intrigued despite her efforts to pretend to the opposite.

Ever since Hope, and the proof that the supernatural existed, she hadn't been surprised to find her cousin throwing herself into the studies of the occult. In fact, she'd joined in. Despite the fact that Dean had assured Lois that demons couldn't conceive children with humans, and so Chloe couldn't be the child of the devil, there were still a lot of questions to be answered.

Her phone beeped, and she reached into her pocket and gazed at the screen. "Have to go, want anything from the Talon?"

"Nah, I'm okay." Chloe gave her a little cunning smile. "You really should give him the time of day you know."

"I don't know what you're talking about." Lois raised an eyebrow as she rose from the bed, heading towards the door.

"Sure! Pretend that the total hottie isn't after you!" Chloe called after her.

Shaking her head as she took the stairs two steps at the time, Lois rolled her eyes in amusement as she hurried out the front door, locking it behind her as she walked towards her mustang. She didn't know why she kept pretending that she wasn't attracted to the handsome Adam Knight, whom she'd met while waiting for Chloe during her therapy sessions with the psychiatrist. Adam had been in a horrible car accident that'd left him with physical and emotional issues of his own, but he had beautiful blue eyes and a smile that made Lois want to blush...but of course she'd never let herself.

She was Lois Lane.

She didn't blush.

Even if he was a "total hottie" who was _so_ after her.

Smiling at that, Lois shook her head as she slid into her car and started the ignition, backing into the street and joining the non-existant traffic. The non-dates for coffee or lunch or sometimes dinner had started a couple of months back now, and Lois both enjoyed the time she spent with Adam and was relieved that he'd never tried pushing the issue. He seemed content spending time with her as a friend, made her laugh, and helped her forget her problems for a couple of hours at least. That was all she needed right now, and was grateful that he happily provided her with the distraction.

Lois had every intention of going to the Talon and enjoying herself to the fullest, really, she _did_.

But then as she passed Bussey's Bar her headlights flashed over a familiar looking car and it was all she could do from pressing down on her breaks suddenly in the middle of the road.

Turning off into the parking lot, Lois emerged from her car and locked it before heading towards the only bar in Smallville, slipping through the front doors and staring around the small, dim establishment. Hazel eyes narrowed in disappointment as her survey came back negative, and she was about to turn back and scold herself for even _thinking_ that he might be there-when the door to the bathrooms swung open and Dean Winchester stepped out, wiping his damp hands against the sides of his jeans. She ignored the whistle from Burt Thompson, who could be old enough to be her father and not half as fit as the General, instead folding her arms over her chest as she kept her eyes on Dean, wondering when his hunter senses were going to kick in and let him know that he was being watched.

He didn't disappoint, stopping midway towards his table, eyes narrowing slightly before scanning the room and landing on her.

Lois raised an eyebrow and smirked.

A grin came over Dean's features as he motioned with his head towards a table before resuming his trip there.

"Hi Father Morgan." Lois waved at the older man who raised his glass of scotch to her, making her way to the table Dean now sat at, sliding herself into the seat across from his. "Dean Winchester. When I saw that Impala outside I _knew_ no one was cool enough to have one of them and live around here."

He grinned, shaking his head. "Can I get you anything to drink?"

"Sadly everyone in Smallville know I'm not 21 yet, so it'll have to be another night in another town." She replied, leaning forwards with her elbows on the table. "How've you been doing, Dean?"

"Good," he nodded. "Can't really complain. I'm alive. That's more than a lot of others in my line of work."

"I can imagine." Lois snorted, looking up at Zoe Garfield when she came around. "A pepsi please."

Zoe nodded. "Sure thing Lois." She turned to leave before turning back and wiping her hands on her apron. "Do you know if Chloe's doing the Luthor Mansion cleanup?"

"Yeah." Lois nodded. "We both are."

Zoe frowned slightly, wringing her hands. "I don't know if that's just a good idea...you know what they say about that place. That it's haunted."

No, she hadn't known that.

Apparently Chloe hadn't told her the whole story.

"I'm sure it'll be fine." Lois assured the other girl, who nodded reluctantly and left to get her her drink.

"Are you _serious_?" Dean ran his hand over his face. "Have you two _not_ learnt from Hope?"

"Hey! This is the first I'm hearing about the haunted part of this whole excursion!" Lois defended herself, throwing her hands up. "Chloe obviously knew I wouldn't go and thus wouldn't let _her_ go, if I knew, so she left that part out."

Dean sighed, shaking his head. "So what exactly is this Luthor Mansion cleanup thing?"

"Well, I don't know if you noticed it on your way in, but out in the outskirts of the town is this really old, abandoned castle looking place." Lois leaned back on her seat, grabbing a napkin and twisting it around and around, flicking it against the edge of the table. "The guy who basically _owns_ this town, Lionel Luthor, well his family brought each stone from their castle in Scotland and rebuilt it here. His family haven't been here in a _very_ long time though, but apparently for some reason they're getting an itch to return because they sent around these flyers asking for a local cleanup crew to go this long weekend and clean up the place for them. In Chloe's words, the pay is "disgustingly generous", but the drawbacks are the fact that you're going to be locked in the house for the whole long weekend since Luthor doesn't want his shit stolen. Also, there might be some residue of meteor rocks in the place-you remember what I told you about the meteor rocks?"

Dean nodded, his face severe. "They make people coocoo for cocopuffs...but with _abilities_."

"Exactly." Lois nodded.

Dean eyed her, shaking his head as he groaned, leaning hard back against his seat and taking a long gulp of his beer. "Where's the sign up sheet?"

"I don't know, Chlo was the one who arranged everything." Lois tilted her head, curious. "You wanna sign up?"

"I'm going to have indigestion if I don't." He grumbled, taking a longer gulp. "Anyway, if it just ends up being nothing, it would have been a weekend in which I scrubbed a few tubs and got paid "disgustingly generously"."

Lois bit down on her bottom lip to try and keep the grin at bay, but was unable to. "Deep down inside you're a big softie, aren't you, Mr. Winchester?"

He scoffed at that, taking another gulp, finishing his bottle and motioning to the waitress for another before turning his attention back to Lois. "So how's the rugrat? You know, _other_ than getting you into potentially dangerous situations."

Lois thanked Zoe when she returned with the pepsi and beer, turning her attention back to Dean. "She's doing good you know. I mean, she still has the nightmares sometimes, and her panic attacks seem to hit every couple of months, but all in all she's doing better. She doesn't flinch away from people when they try touching her anymore, and she's teasing and playful again, and the fact that she's doing her cunning "I wanna get the story for my beloved Torch at all costs" thing is honestly the biggest step forwards yet."

"Torch?" Dean made a face, leaning forwards on the table.

"She's the editor of the school newspaper and has manhandled all the senior students into being her minions. It's beautiful." Lois chuckled, deeply amused with how her tiny little cousin could scare and intimidate big strapping young men into her service.

Dean snorted in amusement. "I remember her saying something about wanting to be a reporter when she graduated."

"Some of her stuff have made it into the Smallville Ledger, we have those articles framed at home." Lois knew that pride was audible in her voice as she grinned. "You'll see them when you come over."

"Come over?" He raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, you can spend the night at our place. Uncle Gabe is on a business meeting. You can have his room." Lois decided. "I know that Chloe will beat me senseless if she knows I ran into you and didn't manhandle you into coming back home."

Dean shook his head. "Usually when a girl wants me home with her, there isn't much sleeping involved."

Lois smirked, fighting the blush that wanted to climb up her neck. "Behave."

"You obviously don't know me that well." He quipped.

"Well, we'll have enough time to get to know each other better this long weekend." Lois raised an eyebrow, smirk growing.

"To getting disgustingly generously paid." He winked, raising his beer bottle to her pepsi bottle as they toasted to that.

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As Dean followed behind Lois' car in his Impala later that night, he couldn't really explain why he was here. These girls had been unfortunate tag-alongs in a very tricky (and still unsolved) hunt, he should have been able to forget them and move on just like he'd done with every other civilian who'd somehow been unintentionally involved in a hunt. And yet he hadn't been able to do so. He didn't know if it was because the girls had saved him just as much as he'd saved them, or if it was because he could identify with their relationship, or what. Maybe it was the whole talk about the meteors that'd stayed on his mind. He didn't know. All he did know was that every couple of months he'd remember Hope and wonder how the girls were doing.

Finally he'd stopped fighting himself and had taken off while his father was hunting with Pastor Jim, making a beeline towards Smallville.

It seemed somewhat incredible though, that on his first night there he'd run into Lois.

And not only that, he hadn't found her, she'd found _him_.

A lesser man would have called that something like "Fate" but Dean didn't believe in Fate. He believed in luck. And dammit, his luck seemed to have soared tonight.

Pulling into the driveway of a two-story house, Dean parked behind Lois' beat-up mustang and grabbed his duffel bag out of the back, slipping out of his baby and locking everything behind him.

Lois grinned, pressing her finger to her lips as she took two steps backwards and twirled around, reaching into her pocket and pulling out a set of keys, hurrying up the few steps to the porch and front door. She opened the door with ease and stepped in, motioning for him to follow as she locked the door behind him, calling upstairs. "Hey Chloe! Look who came to say hello!"

"Mr. Knight!" Chloe yelled from somewhere upstairs, the sound of her footsteps padding around a room echoing down below. "I've told you once and I've told you twice, I will _not_ be engaging in a threesome with you and my cousin. That's too kinky for even _me_."

Dean sent a blushing Lois a questioning look.

"She and our friend Adam Knight have an..._unusual_...friendship." Lois ran her fingers through her hair. "It works for them though."

"Lois is a possessive brat who doesn't share her non-boyfriends no matter how much I beg," Chloe's laughter was mischievous as she opened some door upstairs, coming towards the stairs. "And anyway, I still have a whole year before I'm legal. So-." The blonde finally came into view, freezing at the top of the stairs as she stared down at him, her grip tightening on the bannister. "_Dean_?"

Dean had to admit that for a moment he couldn't believe it was the same tiny, pale kid he'd known a year ago.

Chloe didn't seemed to have grown any taller since the last time he'd seen her, but so much more had changed. Her shapelessness had morphed into curves that shouldn't be on a girl her age, her hair was longer than the short floppy hairstyle she'd had before, and while she was still much paler than Lois the dark bags under her eyes had disappeared. She'd always acted older than her age, but now the way she dressed, adorned herself, and held herself…it now made her seem closer to seventeen or eighteen instead of fifteen. Her body and mannerism now seemed as old as her eyes.

It seemed wrong.

"Hey kiddo." It felt weird to refer to her that way now that she looked like this.

"Dean!" Taking the stairs two steps at a time, Chloe threw herself at him and Dean hardly had the time to wrap his arms around her and twirl with the movement, laughing in amusement as he finally let her down. "Dean! Seriously! _Dean_!"

Shaking his head in amusement, Dean sent a look in Lois' direction, the brunette leaning against the wall and watching them with a tender smile on her face. His hazel gaze then returned to Chloe, taking her in. "You look different."

"It's the fact that I have breasts now." She shocked the hell out of him by candidly announcing this as she pulled away as to give him a view of her chest. "They're not as impressive as Lois' are, I'll give you that, but I'm still growing so I figure I have a year or so to catch up with and surpass her in bounty."

Dean just stared down at the girl, fighting his shock and embarrassment.

Lois was laughing her ass off. "Dean Winchester, meet the _real_ Chloe Sullivan."

"Right." Chloe nodded, smile mischievous. "You only know the silent, traumatized me. So you're probably wondering when I got so loud and handsy, aren'tcha?" She then narrowed her gaze and just threw Dean through another loop when she began to poke his chest. "Have you been working out since the last time we saw each other? Because I always remembered you being fit...but you seem even more _toned_ than last time." She turned to look at Lois, seemingly completely oblivious to the fact that Dean was having a hard time digesting this new her. "Doesn't he look ripped in this shirt?"

Lois' amusement was dark on her face, hardly able to keep from laughing at him. "He doesn't look _too_ bad."

"Hey!" That shocked him out of his little trance, turning to send a mock glare at Lois. "I'll have you know that I'm _seriously_ fit."

"Adam Knight has a six pack." Chloe seemed to be like the devil, egging him on. "Can you compete with that?"

Dean didn't know whether to just stare at her, burst out laughing, or lift up his shirt and prove that, _hell yeah_, he could could with it!

"Chloe, stop, you're breaking his brain." Lois sniggered as she pushed away from the wall and came towards them, wrapping an arm around her cousin's shoulders, sending Dean a far too amused smile. "And we'll need his brain _and_ brawn for the cleanup crew."

Green eyes widened as she turned towards him. "You're coming too?"

He nodded.

"I'll sign you up." Chloe promised with a wink before flashing him a smile. "You will, of course, spend the night here. Dad's gone on a business trip and his room's up for the taking." She looked up when a horn honked outside, making a face. "That's Pete."

"Where do you think you're going with Pete at this time of the night?" Lois sounded a lot like a mother would as she eyed her.

"I promised to help him paint his parent's garage if he came with us. I didn't know that _Dean_ was here and I figured it would be good to be locked in with at least _one_ guy we knew." Chloe shrugged, slipping out from Lois' hold and edging towards the door. "If you begin to doubt my word and location you can call Mr. and Mrs. Ross and they'll vouch for where I am!" She turned her gaze to Dean and gave a little wave. "See you guys later!" And with that she was out of the door and gone.

Dean watched her go before shaking his head and turning back to face Lois. "Are you sure that's the same girl?"

Lois chuckled, way too amused with this whole situation. "Come on, I'll show you to Uncle Gabe's room."

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**TBC**


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Lois had indeed called Mrs. Ross to make sure Chloe was truly there, and had had the woman pass the phone to her cousin to be even more sure. The brunette knew that under other circumstance everyone would think she overprotected the kid, but after the incident with Moira Sullivan (which was sadly enough common knowledge in Smallville) the people seemed to support Lois' mothering of the girl. She'd had a couple of older women stop her and commend her on the "good job" she was doing on Chloe, and while she wanted to point out that taking care of and helping Chloe wasn't a "job" she was grateful for the support and the way people helped her keep an eye on her little cousin. It was getting harder and harder considering that Uncle Gabe was getting more and more work placed on his shoulders, and now it was a rarity to actually have him in Smallville, much less the _house_.

How things were going, Lois could see a promotion to a different plant in a different city in the horizon. She didn't think that the move would be a good thing for Chloe though. Despite the mental facility that housed the now catatonic Moira Sullivan being in Metropolis and thus too close for comfort, this was Chloe's home and Lois didn't think uprooting her from all she knew and loved was a good idea. She'd talked about the possibility with Chloe's psychiatrist as well during her check ups with her, Uncle Gabe having given her guardianship of her cousin in his absence. Dr. Masters believed that moving could undermine all the progress they'd made so far.

And honestly, if Dr. Masters said something, Lois was going to follow it to the last word. The brunette didn't know what stars to thank for Dr. Masters coming to work in Metropolis just when her cousin was in need of serious psychiatric help, but Lois thanked them nonetheless. Dr. Masters was dedicated and nice and was probably the only psychiatrist they'd seen who hadn't tried to ply Chloe with all sorts of medications, instead using other ways to try and treat the girl. Lois didn't know exactly what went on during Chloe's sessions with Dr. Masters, but both her and Adam spoke wonders of the young yet obviously talented doctor.

Speaking about Adam, he'd texted Lois earlier to find out if she was okay, and the brunette had had to apologize profusely for forgetting all about him and blowing him off. With a quick explanation that an old friend had arrived unexpectedly she'd asked for a rain check, and gracious as always Adam hadn't had any problem with it, wishing her a good time with her old "friend".

And that was exactly what Lois was having as she sat on the sofa with Dean, both cradling beers as they spoke.

It was good to see him again.

She mightn't have known Dean long, but during those arduous hours in Hope she'd known he'd had her and Chloe's backs. The brunette really didn't have that luxury here, especially now with Uncle Gabe basically living in hotels all across America due to conference meetings or workshops or seminars or whatever else the ever absent Lionel Luthor thought he needed to do and go through to be a more competent manager. And if Lois was going to go to this cleanup place, in what might be a haunted house, she was glad that she had Dean there with her.

"So your uncle doesn't wonder why his beer's gone when he comes back?" Dean asked, taking a gulp of the beer.

"That's not his beer." Lois admitted with a mischievous smile of her own. "I know his schedule pretty good, it _is_ posted on the fridge and kept faithfully. I have a pretty kick ass fake ID that I use in Metropolis to get the beer, and by the time Uncle Gabe is back the beer's been drunk and the garbage truck has already taken away the evidence."

"Impressive." He chuckled, shaking his head.

"So how's the hunting going? Your dad still as Navy as last time?" That was another thing that she could relate to Dean with, their fathers were both military men and had raised their children like soldiers.

"Yeah, he is, but if he were any other way I'd be freaked out." Dean admitted with a snort. "He's letting me go on more and more solo hunts. That's cool. But I usually end up having to call him or Bobby when I end up hunting something I've never come up against."

"Bobby?" This was a new name, if she remembered right the hunter she'd met was named Caleb, and Dean had mentioned a Pastor Jim, but she hadn't heard of a Bobby yet.

"Yeah, he's probably the hunter with the most knowledge when it comes to supernatural things. His library is filled with the more obscure occult volumes." Dean explained, trailing his thumb against the mouth of his bottle of beer. "He's the Go To Guy for Hunters everywhere."

"Don't tell Chloe about this, she's going to want to find this Bobby and make him her Sensei." Lois snorted, half serious.

"Duly warned." Dean put his bottle down on a coaster on the coffee table.

"Do you have any family other than your father or is it just the two of you?" Lois asked, realizing that there was still so much she didn't know about him. "I think I remember you mentioning something about a younger brother once to Chloe-that he was scared of clowns as well? Or did I just make that up somehow?"

Dean hesitated, an odd emotion crossing his face, before he sighed and answered. "No you didn't, that's my little brother, Sammy. He's your age and in Pre-Law at Stanford."

"Stanford? That's a great school, Chloe went to school with someone who graduated early and went there." Lois whispered, impressed. "This might sound insulting...but how does a man who hunts the supernatural for a living afford to send his kid to such posh diggs?"

"He doesn't. Dad doesn't even _talk_ to Sammy anymore. There was a little falling out when he found out about the scholarship." Dean wouldn't look at her, obviously not used to talking about these things and somewhat uncomfortable. "Sammy's always been the smart one in the family and he got a full ride to Stanford...which he took and immediately got the hell out of the hunting business. Dad told him if he walked out of the door he would consider him dead, and Sammy nearly _ran_ out with his things in his eagerness."

Lois cradled her beer to her chest, her heart going out to Dean as yet another similarity between them was brought up.

"I call him once every couple of months, swing by and keep an eye on him without him knowing," Dean shrugged as if it wasn't anything important, but it obviously was. "He's got a good thing going. He's got friends, a normal life. Hasn't gotten a girlfriend yet, or at least he hadn't the last time I'd checked up on him, but he's got his head screwed on right." Dean reached back for his beer and took a very long gulp of it. "You know, you and Chloe remind me of how we used to be when he was smaller."

"I have a younger sister, she's around Chloe's age, just a little younger." Lois ran her fingers through her hair. "After my mother died my father was unable to handle everything and he shipped her off to this expensive boarding school in Europe and while at first she wrote letters and called telling me she missed me as much as I missed her...I only hear from her at christmas and my birthday...and that's usually only because she sends me e-cards."

Dean finally looked at her, silent, taking a swig of her beer.

She looked back just as silent, taking a swig of her own bottle.

They stayed like that for a couple of minutes, just silently looking at each other, before she finally broke the silence.

"Not that I'm not happy to have you here, because I am, and Chloe's obviously _ecstatic_...but what are you doing in Smallville?"

His hazel eyes met hers. "I honestly have no idea why I came...I just felt in my gut that I should." He chuckled derisively, shaking his head. "Normally I don't believe in that whole intuition mumbo jumbo but I really felt that I should come here so I did."

She contemplated on that, gaze going to the clock for what must have been the hundredth time now. It wasn't that she was bored with Dean and wondering when it would be over and she could go to sleep. No. It was close to Chloe's curfew, less than a minute to go, and the girl still had yet to come home. She didn't want to have to call the blonde and tell her to come home.

The second the hand on the clock hit the hour, the sounds of keys in the lock could be heard, and Chloe entered the house, locking the door behind her. "No need to call the cops or the bus station. I'm here." She was covered in paint from head to toe, it was somewhat comical. "I'm gonna hit the sack and sleep soundly, with my music on high. Just thought you two should know that." And with that she was running up the stairs.

Lois eyed her cousin's fleeing figure, swearing to get revenge later.

"Seriously." Dean pointed his bottle towards the stairs. "How is that the same girl?"

Lois shook her head, finishing her bottle.

"And what was that crack about bus stations?"

The brunette sighed, putting her empty bottle on the coffee table. "A couple of months after Hope Chloe ran away leaving a note saying she'd be back in a week, for us not to worry or bother the cops since she was coming back. Needless to say a week to the day she returned, threw her bag on her bed, and never answered anyone's questions as to where she'd been or what she'd done." Lois made up her face, still very much wary and annoyed by that. "There was a flippant comment about following a bear under a starry sky though, and I'm still unable to really piece that one together."

"Following...a _bear_." Dean raised his eyebrows.

"Exactly." Lois threw her hands out. "Where did she find this bear, why was she following it, and why didn't it eat her?"

"All very good questions." Dean frowned, finishing his own beer. "Her father didn't press her for more details? If I'd disappeared at that age and with that sort of excuse my father would have beaten the living shit out of me."

"So would mine, but Uncle Gabe isn't much of a disciplinarian." Lois made a face, contemplating the many differences between her uncle's and father's parenting methods. "He was just glad to have her safe and sound in one piece."

"Sex Bomb" began playing loudly from Chloe's room, the blonde having apparently been quite serious moments ago about providing herself an audio distraction from any "noises" Lois and Dean might be making.

The little demon.

"And on _that_ note," Lois chuckled, shaking her head as she stood. "We should probably get to bed now."

Dean nodded. "I haven't slept in a bed in a couple of nights...I'm going to sleep like a _log_."

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He couldn't sleep.

At first when Dean had hit the bed he'd fallen asleep immediately, and it'd been a nice deep sleep at that, but a couple of hours later he was awake and tossing and turning. The hunter didn't understand how he could sleep the whole night through on the shitty beds in the motels he'd basically grown up in, and yet here he was on what was probably a goddamn Serta mattress and he couldn't even _pretend_ to be sleeping. It was annoying the hell out of him as he turned left and right, trying to get comfortable in the _too_ comfortable bed.

Maybe he was too used to shitty things that he couldn't handle the good stuff in life.

The thought was depressing.

Turning on his side once more, Dean tried to wiggle into some sort of comfortable position-when his ears picked up a sound downstairs.

Sitting up his hand reached under his pillow immediately and pulled out a blessed Hunga Munga blade. Tightening his grip on the handle as he silently rose to his feet and stood by the door, Dean listened for the sound and heard it again. Yeah. There was someone or something downstairs.

Reaching for the doorknob, Dean unlocked and turned it silently, his bare feet silent as the night against the carpeted hall as he crept through the darkness towards the stairs. He stared below at the darkness, not seeing any movement, yet a sound in another room proved that the person or thing was in the kitchen. The hunter took the stairs two steps at the time and hurried over the tiles below, pressing against the wall next to the archway which led to the kitchen. He changed the way he held his blade, ready to slice whoever was invading...and then he gazed over the edge of the doorway and all tension left him.

Letting out a sigh, Dean gazed up at the ceiling and pushed away from the wall, going through the arched entry into the kitchen. "So I'm figuring I'm not the only one who counting sheep didn't work for."

To her credit, Chloe didn't react much to his sudden appearance, the fifteen year old sitting on the edge of the counter, emptying the glass in her hand with one long gulp. "Nightmare."

He sent her a look, remembering Lois mentioning the fact that the girl had less nightmares than before.

Maybe Lois just didn't know the half of it.

Picking up the half empty bottle of Grey Goose next to Chloe's hip, Dean made a face. "You're not drinking this shit straight, are you?"

"Don't be ridiculous." She rolled her eyes, reaching down into the sink on the other side of her hip to pull up a bottle of cold fruit juice. "Want some? I find that after a nightmare this is the only thing that dulls the pain a lil."

The girl was slurring slightly, yet not enough to be drunk.

Dean knew drunk women, and this one was only tipsy. "The nightmares hurt?"

"Imagine almost every night you mentally relive having a knife stabbed through your heart hilt deep, and slicing through your skin, _twice_." Chloe poured some of the fruit juice into her glass, putting the juice back down before reaching out for the bottle Dean still had. "Your mind is _so sure_ it's actually happening that it fools your body into believing it." She poured the clear liquid into her glass before settling it down next to her once more as she swirled her glass around to mix it into the juice. "So ghost pains take over and not only do you end up with your chest _killing_ you-but your head's going to explode on top of it all."

"Thus the vodka." Dean went to the sink and grabbed a clean glass, filling it with some juice as well.

"Thus the vodka." Chloe agreed, taking another long gulp, the glass half empty when she lowered it from her lips and cradled it on her lap.

"You have a 'killer ID' like your cousin?" The hunter reached her side and poured more vodka in his juice, maneuvering himself so that he was seated on the counter next to her. "Because even though you've done some growing while I've been gone..." He took a sip of his drink, never admitting out loud to liking fruity drinks yet enjoying the taste of this. "And can I just say that for two underaged girls you two drink better alcohol than _I_ do?"

Chloe chuckled softly, shaking her head, taking a smaller sip. "I don't have a fake ID. I can pass for someone of drinking age if necessary, but there has to be darkness, flashing lights, revealing clothes, an _awesome_ makeup job...and lots of alcohol involved."

"So you have someone who _is_ 21 buy it for you." Dean read between the lines, although the detailed reference to being able to pass for older, and the surety in her words, both intrigued and made him wary.

"Money has been known to exchange hands." Chloe declared with a little smirk.

Dean wondered how Lois managed to keep the amount of control she had on this girl. It was obvious that her father was the "hippie type" his father always grunted about, those without discipline and order. He didn't put down his foot and reign in his daughter. In Dean's eyes, Chloe's father shouldered half of the blame for everything, leading all the way to the attack on his daughter. The man hadn't been harsh on his wife, hadn't kept her in a full security lockdown psyche ward, had wanted her close so he could continue frequently visiting her. Both things had facilitated her escape and attack on their daughter.

And now that Chloe was a troubled teenager with obvious boundary issues he just sat back and let Lois, who was basically a kid herself, play mother.

Dean felt righteous indignation on Lois' part, but he wondered if it was fully because he was annoyed on her behalf-or if it was because he knew what it was like raising a sibling without any support from his father.

He wondered if he was angry at Gabriel Sullivan because he was mad at John Winchester.

Those were things he really didn't want to think about...especially now with Sammy abandoning them John was the only family Dean had left.

Chloe whimpered, pressing her hand to her heart, bending over slightly.

Dean frowned. "You okay?"

"Yeah...ghost pain." She grunted, head bent, hair falling into her scrunched up face. She whimpered, the grip on her glass tightening viciously, and when she finally straightened the blonde threw her head back and gulped the rest of the drink as if salvation was at the end of the empty glass. "Hurts like a mother."

There was nothing he could say to that, bringing his glass to his mouth.

"How old were you when you lost your virginity?"

He spat out the drink in his mouth, pounding his chest with his fist. "What?"

"It's a fairly straightforwards question...unless you're confused whether I'm considering oral sex and/or mutual masturbation as losing virginity or if I mean vaginal intercourse." She should be too tipsy to remember those long words. "And to clear up any confusion you might have, I mean good old fashioned intercourse."

"I don't think this is a conversation you should be having with a guy while you're tipsy." Dean made a face. "This is something you should be talking to Lois about."

"I already have. I know her stats. I want to know yours." She pressed on. "Statistically girls lose their virginity at sixteen, guys a year or so earlier."

"Been studying this up?"

"Oh, yeah. I was nearly raped by my dead ancestor while he was wearing some kid's skin because I was a virgin at the time. It's situations like that that made me wonder if it was really something worth keeping." She suddenly began to giggle, proving that she might be on her way to drunk as she turned her gaze on him. "When you were done with it, did you _really_ wish you'd saved yourself for marriage?"

He was not having this conversation with a drunk fifteen year old kid.

No way in hell.

"Maybe we should get back to bed." Dean slid from the counter, uneasy.

"You're no fun." Chloe complained but slid down as well, surprisingly steady on her hands as she grabbed the juice and placed it back in the fridge. "But seriously though..." the girl reached for the bottle of Grey Goose before turning to Dean, face surprisingly serious considering a minute ago she was giggling while asking inappropriate questions. "Do you think Lois is pretty?"

He frowned at this weird change in topic. "Of course I do."

"Are you attracted to her?" Chloe pushed.

"I'm not _blind_." He was getting more and more uncomfortable with the direction of this conversation.

"That's good." Chloe just confused him more and more. "Ever since this happened to me she's stopped being a teenager and has decided to become my mother. But I don't need a mother. I have one. Sure, she's a psychotic bitch who drove a knife through my heart twice, but she's still my mother. I don't need Lois to be my mother. I don't _want_ Lois to be my mother."

That was the most selfish thing he'd heard.

Dean's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to tell the blonde off and try knock some sense into her like his father had done to him time and time again while growing up.

"She has guys who like her, and she likes them, but won't let it happen because I guess she feels she needs to deal with my shit and can't deal with a guy's shit on top of it-but she's making her life pass her by! And I feel guilty as fuck!" Chloe rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, voce breaking and slightly high. "I don't want her to just put her life on hold because mine's screwy."

Dean closed his mouth, all of his anger and annoyance melting into pity for the messed up little girl in front of him.

The kid looked close to tears yet was fighting them violently, pridefully.

"I shouldn't be saying this, I wouldn't be saying this if it wasn't for the vodka, sorry. Forget I said anything...and don't tell Lois about this. She worries about me enough as it is and is so happy now that she thinks I don't have nightmares. She's actually sleeping the whole night through in her room and not staying awake so she can wake me up when I have them. Let her at least have a good night's rest." Her voice wavered as she sniffled. "Night Dean."

Dean watched her go.

Lois was putting her own life on hold to dedicate herself to raising Chloe, just like he had for Sam...and as he watched the tiny blonde sway away, Dean couldn't help but wonder if Sammy had ever felt the almighty guilt Chloe obviously did because of it.

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**TBC**


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Lois had had a great night's sleep and felt rejuvenated the next morning. Things were seriously looking up lately, and every night without waking up to Chloe screaming in her bedroom was a good one. The blonde was obviously making progress and Lois couldn't be prouder of her cousin. She'd soon be back a hundred per cent, and Lois couldn't wait for the day when that happened.

It seemed closer and closer though, Chloe was acting more and more like her old self. Case in point, this morning the girl had gotten up early and made everyone breakfast, the smell of pancakes having been what'd awoken Lois in the first place. The brunette figured Dean mustn't be used to home cooking, because he'd been a little odd during breakfast, sending Chloe calculating looks, but he'd shrugged and started chowing down on Chloe's signature homemade banana pancakes and after his first bite all he could do was make sinful noises and ask for seconds.

Chloe and Lois had shared amused looks before Chloe'd placed their coffees in front of them and went to get Dean his seconds.

It was a novelty to have a man at their breakfast table, usually Uncle Gabe was gone on business trips or he was too busy to have breakfast with them. But as Lois watched Chloe she realized that this was exactly what the girl needed. She needed a strong male influence in her life, someone who she could count on and talk to and who would protect her. She needed a father figure, and a part of Lois felt guilty thinking that while Uncle Gabe was alive and well, but it was the truth. And Dean would be the perfect father figure for the girl.

He was strong, both mentally and physically, and he knew the particulars of her traumas-knew about the things that went bump in the night.

It was a pity that Dean was a rolling stone.

She'd felt him out last night during their talk, studied his body language, the tone of his voice when he talked about his family, about hunts. He loved his family, he was respectful of his father, missed his brother, and the hunt was his life. He enjoyed not having any tie to weigh him down, loved going from town to town, loved the adrenaline that rushed through his veins with each hunt.

The only thing that seemed off in his life was his brother's absence, and she could understand it because from what she could tell from what he'd said and from what he _hadn't_ said, he and Sam were like her and Chloe...and Lois would miss her little cousin like hell if she wasn't in her life anymore.

"So is Pete getting his parents to drop him off at the Luthor place or is he coming with us?" Lois asked as she swallowed a bite of fluffy pancake.

"Neither, Mr. Luthor has rented a bus which will be taking us to and from the house, and he also has some retired cop in charge of keeping things in order while we're there." Chloe replied as she took a sip of her coffee. "Oh! And no phones are allowed either. He doesn't want people taking pictures of what's in there or telling others." She made a face. "I think he has hidden treasure or something there. That's the only reason I can think of for these sorts of restrictions."

"Does anyone else feel like they're going to prison?" Dean wanted to know, halfway through his second serving.

"Just don't bend over to pick up the soap and I'm sure you'll be fine." Chloe patted his arm with a snicker.

"Kiddo, you did _not_ just go there!"

Lois snickered, enjoying Chloe annoying Dean, but the brunette figured she should be nice and save him from Chloe's twisted humor. "So how come Clark's not coming as well? He's usually the third musketeer."

Chloe's expressed soured as she pursed her lips. "Haven't you heard? Lana Lang's single since Whitney Fordman decided to display his hidden genius-level smarts and graduate early, dumping her in the process." The blonde sighed. "So Lana's finally showing some interest in Clark, and he's tripping over himself to be with her. I mean, a part of me wants to give them a couple of months and then brush my hands clean of the whole deal-but Clark's been in love with Lana for as long as he can remember so another part of me is _seriously_ hoping this actually works." She was obviously reluctant to admit that. "I told him to use the time to man up and ask her out."

Lois' eyes widened in shock. "You've finally given him your blessing?"

This was big.

Before...everything...Chloe had been deeply in love with the oblivious Clark Kent, and hurting deeply since he didn't seem to realize that she was a girl. After the attack Chloe had been numb towards everyone, pushing Pete and Clark away despite their attempts to break through her shell...and after Hope Chloe had finally become their friend again. Lois had noticed the blonde's change in attitude towards Clark, her smile much friendlier and less shier, the blushes completely gone, as were the hopeful glances she'd send the boy.

And now it would seem that Chloe had completely gotten over any romantic feelings she'd had for him.

A part of Lois was glad because this way Chloe could find someone who liked her and not be hung up on someone who loved her only as a friend...yet another part of Lois bemoaned the death of Chloe's first love, no matter how unsuccessful it'd been.

"It's the least I could do. Lana's still pinning over Whitney despite the fact that he's been in Stanford for almost a _year_ now." Chloe snorted. "Clark needs all the help and support he can get."

"Stanford?" Dean looked up at that in surprise. "He's going to the same school as Sammy? What's he studying?"

Chloe's gaze went to her dish and she speared her pancakes with her fork. "Pre-med."

A knock sounded at the door and Lois frowned, standing.

"You expecting someone?" Dean was standing as well.

"No." Lois shook her head.

Dean placed a hand on her shoulder, easing her back down onto her stool, as he went to the kitchen door and frowned at whoever was visible through the glass on the other side. He reached out and unlocked the door, opening it enough for him to lean into the doorframe and speak to the person without giving any entry. "Can I help you?"

There was a pause, and then someone cleared his throat. "I'm here to see Lois and Chloe?"

"You asking or telling?" Dean didn't move a bit.

Recognizing the voice, Lois stood once more and went to the door, laying a hand on Dean's back and easing him away from the door enough so she could peak out. "Adam!" She was surprised yet pleased to see him there, and although he smiled at her his blue eyes weren't pleased as they went from her to Dean. "Oh." Clearing her throat, Lois turned to Dean. "Dean Winchester, meet Adam Knight. Adam Knight, meet Dean Winchester."

Adam reached out his hand and Dean shook it, maybe putting a little too much force in the handshake if the slight flinch in Adam's face was anything to go by.

"Come on in." Lois was relieved when Dean finally left the doorway and returned to his plate, giving Adam a friendly smile as she ushered him into the kitchen, closing the door behind him.

"Hey Chloster." Adam came up towards the blonde, hands shucked in the pockets of his leather jacket. "How ya doing?"

"Nothing to complain about." Chloe flashed him a smile. "What about you? Got anything to complain about?"

"I've got a _list_ of things to complain about." Adam collapsed onto the stool next to hers, grinning at the younger girl as he nudged her shoulder with his playfully. "But no one to listen to them."

"Happens." She assured him. "Want some pancakes? Dean might not have eaten them all."

Dean's expression was a mixture of annoyance and amusement, seeming very much the older brother having to deal with a mischievous younger sister.

"Sure, pancakes would be great." Adam nodded to the girl, turning his attention to Lois once Chloe jumped off of the stool to go and prepare some with the batter she still had left. "I was a little worried after you bailed on me last night. I know you said that a family friend stopped by unexpectedly, but from personal experience they only usually do that when shit is about to hit the fan so I thought I'd stop by and check in on the both of you."

That was...incredibly sweet and thoughtful of him.

He hadn't needed to do that, but Adam was seriously trying, doing his best, and Lois needed to start giving him credit for all that he did for both her and Chloe.

Dean might be ideal in some cases, but he led the life of a hunter and Lois couldn't see a way that she could get him to settle down for them. She had no _right_ to do so, to try and change his life this way. She barely knew the man...

...but _Adam_...

With everything Adam did he proved he was not only ready for a place in their life, but wanted it.

He went the extra mile, bonded with Chloe, and was always there for Lois.

He was perfect.

Wasn't he?

Yes.

He was.

He was even _extremely_ handsome on top of being caring and sweet and understanding.

He was the total package.

...

So why couldn't she fall in love with him?

"So how do you know Chloe and Lois?" Adam had directed the question to Dean.

Lois and Chloe shared looks over the sitting men's heads.

Dean took a moment to chew and swallow, before answering. "We met during a roadtrip."

"Really? The roadtrip they took last year?" Adam smiled, having heard about the non-Hope related incidents. "Let me guess, you bumped into each other while touring the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn."

Dean's lips twitched. "It's not as big as you'd think."

"So Chloe assures me." Adam was obviously doing his best to make friends with Dean despite the guy's earlier surly behavior, and it was only winning him more points in Lois' books. "So how long are you in town for?"

"Just passing through." Dean shrugged, the king of vagueness at the moment. "So how do you know the girls?"

"Chloe and I have joint custody of Dr. Masters." Adam sent the blonde a smirk.

Confusion lit Dean's hazel gaze as he frowned and turned to Lois questioningly.

"She's Chloe's psychiatrist." The brunette explained, returning to her seat and sitting, cutting up the last section of pancake she had left. "Adam was in an accident and had to go to therapy the same time Chloe did. We all met each other in Dr. Masters' waiting room."

"You have to see a quack doc?" Dean asked Chloe in surprise.

Adam's face lost some of its smile.

Chloe on the other hand snorted in amusement. "No Dean, please, tell us how you _really_ feel."

He flinched, belatedly realizing how insensitive he'd sounded.

Adam sent a look towards Lois before motioning with his head towards the other room.

Nodding, Lois stood, stuffing the last bit of pancake in her mouth and swallowing. "We'll be back in a minute." Heading towards the living room, Lois considered the distance between here and the kitchen and turned on the television so that the others couldn't hear what they were saying, because obviously Adam wanted to talk to her in private. "Shoot. What's up?"

"How well do you know this guy?" Adam went straight to the point, sending a frown towards the kitchen area before returning his attention to her.

"We know him well enough." She realized that Dean might have come off as insensitive with his earlier comment, and needed to put Adam at ease. "He's a good guy and he didn't mean for that comment about Dr. Masters to be offensive. He's the first person other than me and Uncle Gabe that Chloe actually touched willingly after the attack, that in itself should tell you something about him."

Adam ran lean fingers through his hair. "He's not ugly, Chloe's not blind...or a kid...no matter how much you like to think she is."

"You think she's crushing on him?" Lois' eyes widened at that, never having considered the possibility. She thought about their interactions and just couldn't see any sort of attraction on Chloe's part at all.

"I'm saying that an attraction could have to do with her willingness to be around him, not the fact that he's a good person to have near." Adam was adamant as he spoke. "You met on a road trip a year ago and now he's staying in your house? How much do you even know about this guy? He could be a rapist." He lowered his voice. "He could be a _pedophile_."

"Adam, slow down and back up." She placed her hands on his shoulders, facing him. "You're just going to have to believe me when I say that Dean is trustworthy."

He sighed, shaking his head. "Just...be careful, okay? I don't want you two getting hurt."

"I promise." Lois smiled at him. "And once this Luthor thing is over I'll buy you coffee to make up for bailing on you, okay?"

He frowned, sighing as he peered at her in all seriousness, not at all swayed by her smile and reassurances. "Lois...Chloe's been through a lot in her life...I'm just trying to look out for the both of you."

"I _know_." And she did. "And to prove that I'll buy you _dinner_ instead of coffee-how about that?"

Adam stared down at her before finally smiling slightly at her. "It's a date." His smile grew lopsided as he reached in to press a kiss to her lips.

Lois turned her face at the last second so that his lips would touch her cheek as she reached forwards and hugged him, feeling so guilty for this. He liked her. He _really_ liked her. And while she thought he was hot and sweet and just near _perfect_...she didn't get..._tingles_...with him. She was sure that guy from Tough Love would scold her by saying that she was stringing Adam along, but was she really if she'd told him from the beginning that she wasn't interested in having a relationship for right now?

Adam's arms went around her and held her tight. "Is he coming with you to the Luthor cleanup?"

Lois frowned as she pulled away enough to stare into his face. "How did you know that we were doing that?"

"Chloe texted, asking if I owned a battery operated lantern. Said hers was broken and she didn't want to be without light in there if the electricity wasn't up and running." Adam replied with a raised eyebrow. "It's in my car if you doubt-."

"No! I'm not-_sorry_." Lois sighed, lowering her head and hugging him as well. "I'm really sorry."

"Would you like me to come along?" Adam asked softly. "I haven't signed up and it isn't my idea of a good time, and I don't need the money, but if you're this worked up-."

"No, don't worry, we'll be fine. It's just a few toilets." Lois shook her head as she pulled away. "Lets go and have breakfast."

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Dean didn't know what he thought about Adam Knight.

The guy seemed to be nice and normal and friendly, if not a little wary of Dean.

But then again not everyone were what they seemed to be, were they?

Honestly, if the hunter thought about it, this was none of his business. He shouldn't even be here. He should be out in the road, hunting monsters, killing things before they hurt innocents. He should be doing the family business...and yet he wasn't. Instead Dean was in Smallville Kansas, eating breakfast with two girls who were basically strangers to him and mentally sizing up the guy who appeared to be the one who checked up on the girls and made sure that they were okay. They needed someone like this, a male presence in their lives considering that despite everything the two girls had been through neither of their fathers had done what Dean would have thought the only course of action-never allow them out of their sight.

And that was what made Dean weary.

He knew that his father hadn't been the best of dads, but John Winchester had always made sure that his sons were protected. He was there for them, and when he wasn't there were other hunters (especially Bobby) looking out for them. The few times in which he'd leave Sammy and Dean alone it was always when he knew that his boys were safe, and that they'd be able to protect themselves.

And while Lois and Chloe proved that they weren't fools and both tough girls, they couldn't take care of themselves, not really.

He could see this immediately, and he knew that Adam could as well, which was why he was weary of the other guy because an unscrupulous person would take advantage of situations like this.

But what made Dean even more uneasy was the fact that both Lois and Chloe's fathers had basically left them to fend for themselves. He knew from his conversation with Lois the night before that the men made sure that the girls had enough money to pay the bills and have some fun as well, but other than that "the General" (as Lois called him) was stationed in Alaska doing some training there and Gabe Sullivan was never home. The man was always at some business conference or the other, and Dean had been able to tell from the accumulation of dust in the man's bedroom that he hadn't been inside of that room in at least a month.

He couldn't understand it.

Chloe had been attacked, twice, by her psycho mother, and while the woman was locked up in a maximum security psyche ward the woman _had_ managed to escape the first time _and_ elude capture for days after the second attack, hadn't she? And then Chloe and Lois had nearly been raped and killed by utter psychos in Hope.

How was it that Gabe Sullivan wasn't hiring armed guards to stand watch outside his home while he stayed inside with an ice pick keeping a protective eye on the girls?

How was it that the man could just shrug it all off and leave them vulnerable like this?

It pissed Dean off more than he would have guessed.

Despite being nineteen Lois was still too young to be having to shoulder motherhood like this, and all the responsibilities she bore. It wasn't fair to her, especially since Chloe wasn't her sister. Sure, she was her cousin, but there was a difference between cousin and sister in Dean's books. Then again, he'd never known any of his cousins so he couldn't really comment on that.

All he knew was that Lois didn't have a duty to stay here and raise Chloe.

Gabe Sullivan did.

Dean was getting more and more pissed for the brunette.

And god, he pitied the kid.

With all the shit that'd happened to her Chloe was one messed up girl, and while he wanted to hope for the best like Lois, Dean had a feeling that the blonde was never going to be the girl the brunette remembered and prayed for. Lois saw Chloe's abundance of attitude and cheeky sarcasm as a huge step forwards, Dean though, he saw it for what it really was, a front. She wanted Lois to think she was better, wanted Lois to stop worrying her, wanted Lois to have a life of her own and have a boyfriend, friends, _fun_. So Chloe pretended, she laughed, she was loud, she was outrageous and outgoing and flirtatious and witty...

...but those eyes were still haunted.

"I never took you for a guy who did the dishes." Lois placed the rest of the dirty dishes in the sink in front of him, smile on her lips.

Tearing his gaze from the view from the window of Chloe and Adam talking by his car outside (the view from this window the only reason he'd started the dishes in the first place), Dean grinned at Lois, unable to keep his inner flirt in check. "The mystery's a part of my innate charm."

Lois hesitated a second before smiling cheekier, biting down on her bottom lip as she shook her head. "Do you have many hidden talents, Mr. Winchester?"

He'd wondered if there was anything romantic between Lois and Adam, and he couldn't deny the fact that this obvious flirtation on her part flattered him deeply. "I don't kiss and tell. So you'll have to figure it out on your own."

Her gaze was a darker hazel than his, and it lowered down at him before raising to meet his eyes as she smirked and sauntered away, hips swaying as she left the kitchen.

Dean watched her go, shaking his head with a chuckle as he returned his gaze outside in time to see Adam pass Chloe a bag. The blonde looked inside and pulled out a full bottle of Grey Goose, checking the merchandise before passing him money.

So, Dean had found Chloe's supplier, and apparently the blonde was stocking up for the nights she'd be staying at the Luthor placed locked in, although Dean couldn't figure out how she planned on hiding her nightmares and mild alcoholism from her cousin in such close quarters.

"We should probably swing by the supermarket and get some stuff before going to where the bus will be waiting for us." Lois returned, in a very good mood, not at all aware of the fact that her cousin was illegally purchasing alcohol just a couple of steps outside of the kitchen door. "Are you a Doritos or a Cheetos guy?"

Dean hesitated a second before turning her with a smirk. "Why choose?"

"I'm liking you more and more." Lois grinned. "As soon as Chloe gets the battery operated lantern from Adam we should get going. Is it okay with you if we take my car and leave yours here? The locals know my car and wont tow it away as quickly."

For a moment Dean wondered if he should tell Lois about Chloe, but then he decided that it was none of his business. "As long as my baby's safe I'm game."

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**TBC**


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Lois still couldn't believe that Dean was coming with them on this trip. Even despite the fact that she was sitting next to him in the bus while Chloe sat further in front with Pete. She would have sent Dean a sideways look just to convince herself that this wasn't an illusion, but the sandy-haired blonde was extremely sharp and always seemed to know each and every time she sent a supposedly discreet look in his direction.

Maybe it was the fact that they'd saved each other, maybe it was the fact that she knew she could trust him with Chloe, maybe it was the fact that he was a manly man with supernatural knowledge and a cool Impala that had a false bottom filled with _weapons_.

Maybe it was just that he was incredibly hot.

The brunette didn't know what exactly it was about Dean Winchester that made her hot and bothered and a little self-conscious.

Last time she'd been too busy trying to protect Chloe and not _die_ to really dwell on her attraction, but now she was going to be in closed quarters with Dean for three days...and that really made her think. She knew he wasn't the fathering type, knew she could never expect him to stay, but that didn't mean that she couldn't have some well-deserved _fun_ with him while he was here.

And unless her attraction radar was completely fried from sexual frustration, Dean wouldn't be unwilling.

Hell, maybe if she finally got that out of her system she could really give Adam a chance.

Who knew?

The Luthor Manor (which was actually a _castle_) finally came into view in the distance, looming and looking the perfect picture of a haunted house in a horror movie. A couple of the people in the room made groans, others whooped, and Chloe and Pete just exchanged looks and whispers. They were obviously planning something, although Lois couldn't figure out what. Chloe had said that she'd wanted Pete to be her photographer, but considering that their phones were even being taken away from them since Luthor didn't want any photos being leaked-the brunette wondered how her little cousin was going to pull this off.

She also wondered why Wade and his crew had to be here as well. From the look on Chloe's face when she'd seen them at the bus stop the blonde had obviously not known that the crew were going to be on this trip, and she wasn't pleased either. Lois wanted to think that she was being hard on them and being judgmental considering that people sometimes judged tattooed men for no good reason…but she just didn't like or trust Wade, Scott or Derek. The fact that Adam didn't either was just a confirmation that these guys were bad news and not the sort of people that one wanted to be locked in an isolated place with.

Also, there was just something odd between Wade and Chloe that made the brunette _extremely_ uncomfortable given the fact that Wade and his boys were around Dean's age. When Lois had brought up the topic once in the past Chloe had said it was nothing, that Wade was just trying to make everyone uncomfortable since he was an utter asshole…but Lois could feel that that wasn't the whole truth, the whole story.

The brunette sent a little gaze over her shoulder to the back of the bus to where Wade, Scott and Derek sat, conversing amongst themselves, seeming far too pleased for her liking. Scott caught her glancing and winked, sticking his tongue out and appearing to lap at the air…just….ewww. He needed to stop doing that every single time she saw him! It was an utter turnoff and very off-putting to say the least.

Someone threw a crushed up ball of paper to the back of Chloe's head, Lois frowning and following the trajectory of that ball, wondering why she wasn't surprised to see that it'd been thrown by Jenna Barnum, another student in Smallville High whom Lois had the sneaking suspicion was bullying (or attempting to bully) her cousin. Chloe, for her part, only raised an eyebrow at the other girl before returning her attention to Pete.

Jenna giggled and turned to her boyfriend Sean, as if seeking his approval.

Sean didn't seem to have even noticed her actions, leaning forwards around the seats to talk to the boy sitting there,Trevor Chapell, his best friend and according to Chloe the only footballer who wasn't resentful against her for the articles she wrote about the team when they "sucked".

Trevor nodded in agreement with the stockier sandy-blonde haired boy before his eyes narrowed as he noticed another projectile paper ball soaring through the air towards the back of Chloe's head. With fast reflexes he reached out and caught the paper ball in his palm, turning to give Jenna a glare before shoving it into her boyfriend's hand. "Can't you control your girlfriend for a _minute_? _Jesus_, she's annoying." He then turned around and leaned hard against the seat.

Chloe'd turned around and sent Trevor a little smile.

Trevor gave a little salute.

The blonde smiled a little brighter, shaking her head before returning to attention towards a smirking Pete, who nudged her with his shoulder.

Lois' eyebrow raised in interest, wondering if there was a reason why Chloe was so happy to get over Clark.

The bus drew to a stop in front of the castle (Lois refused to call it a "manor" when it was so obviously a castle) and it was only now that the brunette realized that a man was waiting for them outside of the place with a tidy-looking old woman.

"Everyone, please grab your things and descend from the bus in an orderly fashion." James Beels, a worker of LuthorCorp (and also one of their 'chaperones'), announced as he killed the engine.

Chloe and Pete were off the bus before them, but as Lois and Dean made it off of the bus they found the two kids waiting on them, shouldering their bags as they gazed at the man and woman coming towards them.

"Hello, I'm Sam Phelan, this is Margaret, the caretaker of Luthor Manor." The man announced.

Chloe frowned as she gazed at him, leaning into Pete to whisper: "Where have I seen this guy before?"

Pete shrugged without taking his gaze off of Phelan.

"You all already met Mr. Beels," Phelan declared as he motioned to the man who'd driven the bus here. "We're appointed by Mr. Luthor to be the overseers of this task, and to make sure that you are all safe."

"Safe." Trevor frowned, folding his arms over his chest. "Something you not telling us about the place, sir?"

"Safe from yourselves." Phelan explained, folding his arms behind his back. "This is a isolated place which has been abandoned for many years and has garnered many different stories about it. You'll be locked in for three days, without any communication with the outside world, and sometimes the electricity might go…some people aren't able to handle that sort of pressure."

"So basically you're here to keep an eye on us and make sure no one gets cabin fever and goes axe-happy." Pete declared, fixing the strap of his backpack higher on his shoulder.

"I doubt it would get to those extremes." Phelan snorted at the very thought. "This is all just healthy precaution. Mr. Luthor wouldn't like it if someone got hurt on his property."

"Course he wouldn't." Chloe snorted, folding her arms over her chest. "We could sue him if we did."

Phelan ignored her, turning to the woman next to him. "If you have any questions before we begin, Margaret can answer them for you."

"I have a question." Jenna raised her hand from where she was leaning into Sean. "There's all these stories about the place being haunted. How true is that?"

"What are you, a _baby_?" Scott snorted in derision from the back of the group, but was generally ignored.

"I think every house has an imprint of the people who've lived there before, and many generations of Luthors have lived within this house." Margaret replied with a small smile to the girl. "Each stone was disassembled from Scotland, brought over here when Mr. Luthor's ancestors moved to the states, and reassembled here. So this house has seen so much…I think its understandable that so many stories have arisen about it. But, sadly, I must say that if you're here to find a ghost the only haunted thing you'll encounter are the water pipes…they _can_ make an eerie sound when they act up."

"Don't worry babe, I'll protect you." Sean declared, hugging her closer.

Jenna rolled her eyes, yet smiled nonetheless.

"You've already given your mobiles to Mr. Phelan, so we're ready I suppose. Let's all go inside." Margaret announced with her placid smile, turning and leading them towards the open doors. "You'll have your own separate rooms, which have already been cleaned out, and you can go set your bags in your rooms before getting to work."

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Dean didn't know why the hell he was there.

He'd kept his home-made EMF reader on his belt, turned on, and it hadn't lit up _once_. In fact, he'd been working scrubbing some _disgusting_ bathrooms (thank god for the packs of heavy-duty gloves that Chloe had thought to buy for them) for _hours_, and nothing had seemed out of the ordinary. There weren't any fluctuations in the electricity, no cold spots, no whispers, no _nothing_. He'd taken pictures on his digital camera and couldn't even find _orbs_.

Of course, there was the fact that some hauntings happened during certain hours in certain places at certain times of the year…but so far this was really shaping up to be slave-work. That's all.

The door to the bathroom opened behind him and Dean looked up to see Lois in the doorway, wearing her own set of gloves, hair messy, and eyes twinkling in amusement.

"Now what's a girl like you doing in a place like this?" Dean offered his most charming smile despite the fact that he was on his knees scrubbing the disgusting, grime-covered floor.

"Taking pity on you." Lois replied with a snort as she reached behind her for her own bucket of soapy, disinfectant-filled water, bringing it inside as she knelt down next to him. "It's ridiculous how big these bathrooms are. My room at the last base my father served in wasn't even this size."

Dean had to nod his agreement, this bathroom easily larger than any of the shitty motel rooms he'd grown up in. "This Luthor guy's obviously a douche. No one needs a john this big."

Lois nodded as she began to scrub. "I want to thank you, again. There probably isn't anything supernatural about this place and you've probably just signed yourself out for indentured labor-but _thank you_." She stopped scrubbing and looked up at him. "It means a lot."

This was quickly becoming a chick flick moment and Dean just didn't know how to handle those, so he sent her an awkward smile and did his best to change the topic, immediately. "You know, my first thought while driving into Smallville was how fucked up it was that you'd escaped from a psychotic town surrounded by cornfields…to another town which you'd told me was filled with psychos…and was also surrounded by cornfields."

She snorted in dark amusement. "It must be the corn."

"It must be." Dean chuckled his agreement, returning his attention to the scrubbing.

A squeal in the next room caused them to pause, both hesitant, weary, before another squeal morphed into a purr.

"Oh you've _got_ to be joking." Lois made a face in disgust. "These rooms are _terrible_! What in god's name would make those two horny beasts want to get at it?"

Dean snickered as the sound of thumping against the wall could be heard. "This brings back so many childhood memories…"

"You poor, poor soul." Lois shook her head before returning her attention to the scrubbing, obviously trying to ignore the sounds of groaning and thudding going on in the other room. "I was talking to Margaret, and she says that this used to be quite the party place back in the day. She said that despite Smallville being a hick town the Luthors would bring their high class friends here for lavish events that would last for days."

"Hard to imagine this place as anything other than the shithole it is now." Dean admitted, giving the bathroom a pointed look.

"Seeing it now I get your point, but if Margaret can be believed this place was incredible." Lois replied, rubbing her arm over her forehead before returning to her work. "Maybe if the fire hadn't happened it wouldn't have been so abandoned and in such a bad state right now and we'd never be able to see the inside of it. I don't know. But I have to admit I'm curious. There's rumors that this place is like in the movies, you know? With secret passageways and stuff like that? Makes you wonder."

Dean frowned at that.

Secret passageways.

Now there was a thought.

"The highest floor was supposedly the Luthor patriarch's place, but we've been banned since the structural damage there from the fire makes it unsafe." Lois frowned. "Apparently a couple of the guys who've been contracted to remodel the whole upstairs were injured, and that was why it's been cordoned off."

"Do you know what started the fire?" Dean asked curiously.

Lois shrugged. "I asked Margaret that, but she said that the cause was never determined. All they knew was that it started on the top floor and that a lot of important people of the time were killed in it."

"You'd think that an event that killed so many important people would have been investigated more thoroughly." Dean's eyes narrowed.

"I thought that it seemed somewhat swept under the rug." The brunette admitted, putting more shoulder into her scrubbing. "I'm actually wondering if that mightn't be the real reason why Chloe was so intent on doing this."

"You mean _other_ than the unholy paycheck?" Dean raised an eyebrow.

"She's working an angle on this and keeping me in the dark because she knows I'm not going to approve and will go all mama-bear on her." Lois nodded, very firm in this belief. "While it hurts me a little that she won't tell me everything anymore, I guess it's what mothers go through when their daughters start growing up, right? I mean, before I was more of a confidant and partner in crime but now I've had to start putting down the law…and I guess that changes our positions in this relationship and makes me an authoritative figure."

Dean could see the sadness in Lois' eyes, and it called to a part of him he didn't want accessed. "I don't know the girl as well as you do, but I doubt she'd bring you here if she thought you would be in danger."

Lois' smile returned and she nodded. "Oh, I know _that_! I just wish she'd let me in on exactly what she's got up her sleeve."

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"This place is seriously creepy." Pete grumbled as he chiseled at the peeling wallpaper on the wall that they were currently working on. "I don't know if its a good idea to be wondering around this place at night. It's like a labyrinth." His voice lowered. "What if we get lost?"

"Pete, we won't get lost." Chloe assured him, gaze going to where Scott and Derek were talking and smoking, definitely not doing the work they were going to get paid to do. "And if we do we can just say we went out to make out and got lost. No one will suspect the truth."

"Your cousin will, for one." Pete countered, pointing his chisel at her. "She knows there's nothing attraction-wise between us."

"She's not stupid, she knows I'm up to something. She'll cover for us." Chloe felt a little insulted that Pete hadn't realized this by now. "Tonight, after lights out, we'll go and check things out, just a quick recon. We'll be back in bed before anyone even realizes we're gone."

"I don't know why I always let you talk me into these sort of situations." And yet Pete was grinning as he shook his head, returning his attention to the peeled wallpaper. "I always end up getting in trouble because of you."

"'Always' is a _little_ bit of an exaggeration, don't you think?" Chloe snorted, returning to her work as well.

Pete sent her a look. "_No_. It _really_ isn't."

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**TBC**


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Her room was quite large actually and much cleaner than she'd expected it to be. Sure, they'd said that the place would be cleaned up for them to stay in, and yet she hadn't expected things to look this nice. She was tired from having worked all day, and yet the blonde knew that the grime and dirt would have to remain on her given the fact that Jenna and the others had claimed the only bathroom for themselves. There'd be better luck to bathe after dinner, which Phelan and Beels had gone out to get considering the kitchen in this place was a wreck and useless. So the blonde sat on the edge of the bed, trying not to get it all dirtied, and gazed around her at the place, trying to imagine how it must have looked back in the day before the fire.

"How can you stand it in here? The whole place reeks of humidity and _burn_."

Bringing a hand to her mouth to silence the scream, Chloe turned to see _him_ leaning on the wall, making up his nose in distaste. "What are you doing here? The place will smell of _sulphur_!" She got up and rushed to the window, fighting with it, trying to open the thing but it was sealed shut with disuse. "Dean is here in this building, you _know_ that! _Why_ would you-?"

"I doubt Deanie boy will be venturing into your room any time soon. Your cousin's though? A distinct possibility…and I don't like it." Azazel announced with a frown, running a finger over the wood of the closet and making a face. "I also don't like the idea of you staying in this place. It's much too…_dirty."_

"Look, this is the only way I was able to get access to the house…which was _your_ idea by the way. And anyway, it's actually pretty clean." She continued struggling with the window. "You should see the rest of the house."

"I _have_, back when it was something to look at." The demon in human flesh made his way next to her and nudged her with his shoulder, easing her out of the way before with one clean movement he opened the window. "I'm a little surprised that this is your room."

"And why is that?" She questioned, waving her hand in the window trying to fan out some of the scent of rotten egg.

"This was Luthor's mistress' room." He explained, folding his arms over his chest and leaning against the wall, eyeing the bed. "Back in the day I had such _fun_ in this room." His lips curled in amusement. "Many of us did."

"Luthor didn't know his mistress was getting in out with multiple others?" Chloe was morbidly curious.

"Oh, he _knew_. He was quite the voyeur." Azazel smirked deeper. "There's a passage that connects to this room, I can't remember exactly where though…but once his wife was asleep he'd sneak into here and watch whoever Francesca had brought to her rooms. And sometimes he'd join them…all depend on his mood."

She could totally see the demon relieving those times. "If you and Luthor were so close _why_ are there anti-demon sigils all over this place? _Also_…considering that…_how_ are you able to be here right now?"

"I have my mark on this room…another reason why you're being here is quite interesting." He admitted. "Francesca wanted to make sure I could still visit _her_…even after I outstayed Luthor's welcome." He puffed out his chest in pride. "My kind are _known _for their ability to pleasure human women…and men…depending on our sexuality of course."

His kind.

Right.

Demons.

Chloe took in a deep breath, never stopping fanning out the scent as she got to the reason he was obviously here. "How can you be sure it's still there?"

"Its there."

"How can you be _sure_?"

"It's _there_."

The blonde glared at him, annoyed that she had to be lying to everyone she knew and loved, and going behind their back and making them work like slaves (even if well-paid slaves). "You could be more helpful you know. I'm lying to my cousin, one of my best friends, _and_ Dean! I'm also quite sure I'm going to end up getting lost up there in that labyrinth-."

"Don't be ridiculous-."

"-and be attacked by rats because you _know_ this place is infested with them!" She continued on as if he hadn't said anything. "So the _least_ you could do for me would be to have complete assurance that it's there!"

"You need to remember that you work for _me_." Azazel's voice went low, his eyes flashing gold, and air of danger and threat pulsating from him like black waves. "I demand _respect_. I could always go back on our agreement and our dear Dean will die instantaneously of the wounds he should have died from in Hope."

She went cold, not even having noticed that she'd been backing up until her back hit the wall.

Azazel sighed, all intimidation and threat evaporating immediately as he eyed her, shaking his head. "I don't like unease between us. But you test me. And you're disrespectful."

The blonde eyed him in silence before nodding. "You're right. I was being disrespectful. I'm sorry."

He shook his head. "Don't know if I like you submissive either."

Her temper flared once more as she glared at him. "There's no pleasing you, is there?"

He smirked. "Middleground. Yes. I like that."

Rolling her eyes, Chloe folded her arms over her chest, never quite sure what she thought about her temporary boss. "So I find this thing, hand it over to you, and then deal with Lex Luthor when his father sends him over to investigate…and then that's it? Our contract is terminated and Dean keeps his life? Am I right to assume this?"

"Those are the terms." He agreed. "Get it for me, _to_ me, and…follow through with your last mission once Lex arrives…and you will have finished the last requirement of your contract."

"Good." She nodded, before pausing. "What if it's not here?"

"It's _here_." Azazel replied patiently this time. "The fact that the seals are still present are a testament to it. It. Is. Here."

"Okay." She realized he was making sense. "You're right. They wouldn't have anti-demon seals in this building if something wasn't here."

"My point exactly." He smiled. "It's an easy job. Find it. Bring it out to me. And our deal is almost done."

"No harm no foul." She whispered.

A knock sounded on the door. "Dinner's here!" Lois opened the door and stuck her head inside, smiling. "Come on, let's go." She made up her nose. "It reeks in here."

"Yeah…" Chloe's gaze went to the window to find Azazel gone.

"Oh, you got your window open! Mine's sealed shut." Lois commented before turning to her. "I'm starving!"

Chloe stood and nodded, following her cousin away, sending the window one last look before shutting the door closed behind her.

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There were ten volunteers there including the girls, Pete, and Dean.

The hunter in Dean had him sizing up everyone as they ate in what had once been a grand dinning room.

First off there were the 'chaperones'.

Sam Phelan was apparently a retired detective who used to work in the Metropolis Police Department. He walked oddly, almost with a limp and yet not, and at certain times of the day he'd pop a pill into his mouth and dry swallow. Probably had been discharged after an injury sustained during the job that he still had to take pills for. Maybe for the pain, maybe for mental repercussions from the trauma.

Margaret was elderly and proper. She smiled, was polite, and spouted off information no one really asked about. It was obvious that she hadn't had a decent conversation in a very, _very_ long time.

James Beels, the driver, was a man with eyes that seemed to take in everything around him. He seemed to be evaluating everything he came into contact with, touched things, asked questions. He looked exactly like a thief surveying a potential job. The fact that he seemed to know the three "tattooed volunteers" just made him more of a suspicious character considering that those three didn't strike Dean as characters he wanted to hang around, and wouldn't want the girls around by themselves either.

Wade Maheny had apparently been some hotshot footballer in high school (had gone to the same school Chloe attended) and while he'd had scholarships they'd all gone away once he blew his knee. He was tattooed, had a superior attitude, and rubbed Dean the wrong way. Maybe it was his swarmy sneer, or the way he wasn't really doing any work. It could also be the fact that he was Dean's age and kept eyeing Chloe and her schoolmate Jenna with interest men their age shouldn't.

Scott Bowman was an old football buddy and just as tattooed and unappealing as Wade, whom he seemed to take as a leader completely. He followed Wade's lead, listened to whatever Wade said, and took his cues from the man's actions. The way in which he showed any individuality from Wade was the way he didn't oggle Chloe, instead obviously finding Lois much more to his liking.

Tattooed as were his old football friends, Derek Fox seemed the smartest of the three and the quietest. He did a lot of sitting and steepling of fingers. He also was the one who had Margaret talking nonstop all about the castle.

Sean Kelvin was a stereotypical high school jock, all-american boy next door who oozed self-confidence and flirtation. He kept an arm around Jenna, and was definitely coping a feel under the table, but kept his attention on Chloe and Lois as well.

Jenna Barnum was a cheerleader and obviously something of a bully if the paper ball she'd thrown at the back of Chloe's head had anything to say about it. She was pretty, sassy, and terribly insecure. It was ridiculous. Everything she did was a plea for Sean's undivided attention.

Trevor Chapell was very much like Sean in the fact that he was football player for the local high school, blonde, blue eyed, and always wearing his jersey. _Unlike_ his best friend though, Trevor didn't seem like a total _ass_.

There was Pete Ross, Chloe's friend. He was African American, apparently also played football (was there anyone here who _didn't/hadn't_?), and also worked in the school newspaper with Chloe. He seemed smart, gusty, and down to earth.

Out of all of them, Pete and Trevor seemed the more reliable of the guys, with Chloe and Lois the only girls.

Wade, Scott and Derek smelt of trouble.

Sean and Jenna were just…annoying.

The "chaperones"…Dean was still undecided…although he didn't trust Beels and kept an eye on him.

"I don't know too much about the supposed hidden passages, and in all my years as caretaker I have never found evidence of their existence being more than legend, but I _do_ know that it was said that many of those passageways interconnected and led back to the Master Bedroom." Margaret answered one of Derek's questions, taking a sip of box-wine. "But, if I remember right, one of those passages were suppose to lead to the mistress' room." Her gaze went to Chloe. "Your room."

The blonde choked on her sip of coke.

Wade smirked. "Imagine that."

The young girl's green eyes narrowed on him warningly.

Surprisingly, Wade backed off, hands up in a defeated way yet his expression was amused.

Dean looked between the two of them, eyes narrowed, before his attention was jerked from them to Lois, who was flipping off Scott in disgust. Apparently he'd missed some sort of confrontation between them.

"Well, we should all probably go to bed now." Phelan announced, stretching.

"I agree." Beels stood as well, sending Wade and his boys a meaningful look. "Good night ya'll."

Suddenly Chloe froze, her eyes going wide.

Pete leaned in towards her, frowning. "You okay?"

She grabbed his arm. "Walk me to my room."

"Okay?" Pete made a face as she pulled him up with her and started walking away.

Wade watched them as they left.

Dean frowned, surprised to realize that that brotherly protectiveness he usually only had reserved from Sammy was rearing its ugly head up at this moment. He had a feeling that had he had a sister, and some guy was so inappropriately attracted, this was exactly how he'd react. It both surprised and confused him because he didn't want to get in the middle of what wasn't his business, and yet his gut was telling him that both Wade and Scott needed to be told to back the hell off of the girls.

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It didn't take a genius to know that something had clicked for Chloe, and that was why she'd pulled Pete away Lois excused herself from the table, hurried after her cousin and caught up with the younger kids as they made their way towards Chloe's room-which was thankfully only two doors down from Lois'. The brunette flung her arms around Chloe's and Pete's shoulders, lowering her head between them as she walked to their speed.

"So, what lightbulb went on it your head back there?" She asked, cutting to the chase.

Chloe didn't even hesitate. "I've been trying to figure out where I've seen Detective Phelan before, and I realized where."

At the hesitation Pete turned towards her. "Well?"

Chloe made a face. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight?" Lois felt lost, not sure what in the world her cousin was talking about.

"Are we speaking in code again?" Thankfully Pete didn't seem to get it either.

"No, I mean the Goodnight murders." Chloe rolled her eyes at them. "It happened a couple of years back, there were a string of murders in Metropolis. Detective Phelan and his partner received a noise complaint from a neighbor which led them to Goodnight's lair. He had killed a whole bunch of people, massacred them with inhuman strength and viciousness, but he'd kept one girl alive. She had religious symbols tattooed on her, and given the ritualistic nature of the killings they think that Goodnight hadn't killed her because of them."

"So a tattoo saved her life?" Lois made a face.

"Oh, it gets better." Chloe assured her, before showing her that no, it was no in way better. "A part of Goodnight's signature was taking the eyes out of his victim's heads. Just because he let her live doesn't mean he skipped that part of his ritual."

"He took out her _eyes_?" Pete hissed.

"Yeah." Chloe nodded, making a face as they reached her door. "He also killed Phelan's partner, injuring Phelan pretty badly before the detective shot him in the head and ended it all."

"Why do you read this sort of stuff?" Lois wanted to know, feeling somewhat nauseas.

"I get curious." Chloe shrugged. "I might even spend the night trying to figure out if there actually is a passageway leading out from my bedroom."

"That _was_ creepy." Pete agreed.

"You wanna switch rooms?" Lois offered, allowing her hands to slip from their shoulders. "Or we could share mine if you don't feel comfortable."

"I'm fine mom." Chloe smiled at her, shaking her head. "You go and make sure Mr. Winchester doesn't kill himself out of pure boredom. Pete'll keep me company and make sure I'm all right."

Lois turned to Pete. "If she gets to be too much, Dean's down the hall, turn a right, and its the second room to the left."

Pete nodded. "Yes ma'am."

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Chloe left Pete in her bedroom while she went to bathe, feeling nearly desperate to be clean. She somewhat resented the others for hogging the bathroom this long, she hadn't been able to enjoy the food while feeling so horribly dirty, and yet she realized that that was life and one had to go through certain things. Also, Jenna Barnum only tried bullying her because she was insecure, and because Chloe didn't stop her. Then again, Chloe hadn't stopped her because she had a feeling that if she did so, all her anger and frustration would surge out and she'd end up killing the girl. So it was better for the both of them if she just tried ignoring Jenna.

Submerging herself under the spray of hot water coming from the shower, the blonde closed her eyes and allowed the water to wash away all the sweat and dirt. She stayed beneath the flow, running her hands through her hair before soaping up her body. Despite the lack of sensitivity in the scarred skin she moved her fingers softly over the intersecting scars over her heart.

Sometimes she still had unexpected and unwanted flashes of Hope, of what had gone on there, of the deal she'd made to save Dean's life.

Sometimes she sat down and purposely thought about it, about the terms…and the unexpected directions her life was taking with the slow process of completing them.

Sometimes she blamed everything on her virgininty, even though it made no sense whatever. After Hope all she could think about sometimes was the fact that she'd nearly been raped because she was a virgin, and many times she just wanted to lose "it" to the first person to cross in front of her.

Sometimes though, like tonight, she just traced the cross carved on her chest and blanked her mind of any thought at all.

She didn't hear anything, didn't see anything, but she sensed it.

Instinct roared up, like prey under the gaze of a predator, and with a quick motion the blonde turned the faucet closed. She wiped droplets of water from her face as she reached for her towel, wary, gazing around her. Wrapping the towel around her body Chloe stepped out of the shower and into her shoes, looking around her, knowing that just because she couldn't see anyone there didn't mean that he or she wasn't there. It was like her meteor-dar was going off with sirens and blaring lights, a trait she figured she owed to some latent meteor ability considering that all her infection did so far was shield her heart.

Seeing movement across the wall, Chloe's eyes narrowed as she drew closer, bending slightly, a gasp escaping her lips as she saw definite movement of someone moving away from the wall. The blonde knelt down, reaching out with her fingers to touch the hole in the wall which was big enough for someone to peek through. Someone had been on the other side watching her. She was sure of it.

A wolf whistle echoed throughout the bathroom.

A squeak escaped her lips as she stood and twirled around to see Wade leaning against the wall, smirking at her, arms over his chest.

Chloe's gaze went to the locked door back to him, securing the towel tighter around her. "You know, considering those tattoos wear out the more you use them, you'd think that you wouldn't waste the ink on something as juvenile as peeking on girls as they showered."

"On the contrary…why not use what you have to make life nicer?" He grinned, not at all repentant. "Plus we just got them redone last night. There's more than enough juice in them for some minor enjoyments."

Sometimes she wondered if she shouldn't just sleep with Wade. He was attractive, smart enough, and she knew his secret so she doubted he'd have a problem keeping a secret for her. Wasn't he already keeping one for her? Then again, he could very well get in trouble if he revealed that he'd been her ride when she'd left Kansas some months back. She was shocked the news hadn't gotten out yet to be truthful, given the fact that he had loose lips when drunk…wasn't that how she'd found out about his friends' and his inventive use of meteor inked tattoos?

"Peek on Jenna. God knows she needs the attention."

"Are you jealous?" He smirked, pushing away from the wall and coming towards her, leaning forwards with the palms of his hands on either side of her face as he smirked down at her. "Did me checking her out tick you off?"

"Please. Your inability to act as if we don't really know each other is what ticked me off." She narrowed her eyes as she glared up into his face. "Dean and Lois _both_ caught onto that little interaction between us and the whole passageway to my bedroom comment. Don't think I'm not going to be called on it by Lois…and Dean looked like he was going to pull you aside and give you a big brother "back off" speech."

Wade's smile slipped slightly, instead morphing into a sneer as he leaned closer. "Who exactly is the underwear model anyway?"

"What is it about Dean Winchester that makes other guys so horrible insecure?" Chloe couldn't keep the laughter from tumbling from her lips. "Adam used almost the same words to describe him, except he said 'Calvin Klein model'."

"I asked you a question." He grumbled, leaning in so close he was pressed up against her.

"Why?" She smirked back up at him. "Are _you_ jealous? Insecure? Feel like you can't live up to him?"

Wade pounded his fist against the wall by her head with a snarl.

She didn't flinch, staring up at his face.

"Once you turn sixteen I'm gonna fuck you _hard_." He near threatened with a growl. "That's what happens to damn cockteases."

"What are you doing here, Wade?" She finally asked, staring into his blue eyes.

He paused for a second, raising an eyebrow. "Pretty sure I was warning you of an impending fuck once you're legal."

She rolled her eyes, leaning harder against the wall. "I mean here in the castle. Why are you and your minions here? From what I can see, there's nothing worth stealing."

"Aw, you hurt my feelings, assuming I'm only here on a job." Wade tilted his head to the side.

Chloe's eyebrow raised.

"Okay, so _maybe_ there's a job here." He snickered, giving in and not even pretending innocence anymore as he reached down to brush a wet lock of hair out of her face. "There's a safe, one said to be _filled_ with all sorts of riches."

"You can't really think that they'd leave something like that rotting here." Chloe shook her head.

"It was stored upstairs, which the fire destroyed and made impossible to search for where it was."

The blonde frowned as she held her towel tighter at her chest. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Why not?" Wade countered. "You're not gonna try for the money, and you're not gonna tell on us. You've proven your ability to keep things to yourself. We value that in a girl."

"This isn't a recruiting mission is it?" She made a face at him. "Because while I reluctantly am impressed that you managed to manipulate liquid meteor rock to the extent you have, I have no interest in a life of crime…or in sticking that shit into me…even _if_ your tattoos are kinda cool."

He smirked.

Lowering her gaze, contemplating something for a moment, Chloe decided to risk it as she gazed up at him, raising her hand to trail up his chest. "While you're searching…could you do me a favor?"

His gaze darkened as he smiled, sinking his fingers into her hair. "What sort of favor?"

"If you come across a book, old, leather, has odd writing on the cover and a drawing of a cage…bring it to me?" She tilted her head as she gazed into his face, not sure if what she was doing was working, never having really tried to use any sort of feminine wiles before.

"_Book_." He raised an eyebrow down at her dubiously. "I thought you were going to ask me for a piece of jewelry or something."

"I'm a simple girl." She replied truthfully.

"What's so special about this book?" He asked, narrowing his eyes slightly. "I'm guessing it's why you're here."

"It's why I'm here." She agreed, not saying anything else.

He paused before narrowing his eyes further, tightening his grip on her hair and tilting her head back. "This have anything to do with…that time?"

She tried to nod but his grip was too hard. "Yes."

"You know what? Don't tell me more then. I don't need to, and don't want to, know more." He let go of his grip on her hair and pulled away slightly. "I'm not going to be actively looking for it, but if I come across it I'll bring it to you…for a price."

"Chivalry _has_ died." She bemoaned, though not at all surprised.

Winking, Wade pushed away from her and backed away until he reached the far wall…and phased right through it to the room on the other side.

Sighing, Chloe brought her hand to her head and closed her eyes.

The second she'd seen Wade and his guys at the bus stop she'd had a feeling that they were going to be on a job, but a part of her had hoped that they were going to give hard work a real try. She should have known better. Still, with Wade's ability and extra eyes she had a better chance of finding this book Azazel wanted so badly, so she was just going to have to go with the flow and take advantage of the situation.

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**TBC**


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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When Lois opened the door to Dean's room she found him sitting on his bed cleaning one of his guns, his other weapons sprawled all over the bed around him. He seemed so in his element surrounded by those things, so at peace…totally oblivious to the fact that she was peering at him. It made the brunette hesitate a bit because she wasn't used to that sort of reaction from men. Usually they noticed her immediately, and she wondered if it was because of Dean's different reactions to her that she was fascinated by him. Then again, he was really, _really_ hot. But so was Adam. And honestly, between the two of them, Lois couldn't figure out which she thought was physically hotter. God (if he existed) had been either very cruel or very kind to have created two men so masculine yet beautiful.

Adam's comment about maybe Chloe having a crush on Dean echoed through her mind right now of all times, and the brunette leaned in the doorway with a frown as she thought about that. Was the guy just drawing at straws or was he seeing something that Lois wasn't? Because from what Lois could see, Chloe was trying to line her up with Dean, which wasn't something someone who liked the same person would do.

But then again Chloe was different.

But also Chloe's was so young.

Too young.

Shaking her head, refusing to fall into one of her many mental arguments with herself, Lois slipped into the room and locking the door behind her. "If you plan on being all Guns and Ammo like this you should _probably_ lock your door." She warned as she came closer, just eyeing some of the weapons on display. "You don't really think you're going to need any of this, do you?"

"Not really." Dean admitted, pointing with his chin towards a walkman on the table next to him. "That thing hasn't lit up once since we've been here. Zero spirit activity."

Spirit-?

Eyes widening, Lois dropped the bottle of whiskey she'd been hiding behind her back into his lap and went to the side table, picking up the device. "Is this an EMF detector?"

"First of all-ouch." Dean put down his gun and picked up the bottle. "Second of all…I made that myself."

"Really?" Lois' eyes widened in admiration, wondering how difficult it'd been and if she could pull off something like that on her own. Or have Chloe do it. Either way. "That's so neat."

His grin was proud as he eyed his device before placing some of the weapons he'd already cleaned into the duffle bag. "So how come you're leaving Nancy Drew all alone?"

"She's got a Hardy Boy with her." Lois continued to turn the EMF around as she examined it. "I figure, knowing her MO, tonight's mere recon. Nothing serious. She'll want to get a feel of the place and whatever she has planned. And if things get too hairy she'll let me know." The brunette finally put down the EMF and turned towards him. "Does this place creep you out like it does me or are you just used to old, freaky buildings?"

He seemed to consider that question as she threw herself down on the part of the bed that he'd cleaned off for her. "I think I'm never a hundred per cent at ease, but I'm not jumpy either. Like you said, I've been in one too many haunted places for every single one to give me the creeps. And I seriously doubt this one is haunted. There hasn't even been any flickering lights or the run of the mill ghostly whispers. No cold spots. Nothing."

"Wow, you've been checking all this out while you were cleaning, weren't you?" Lois couldn't help but feel impressed.

"I'm a professional." Dean sent her a smirk as he finished cleaning a knife.

Lois eyed him before reaching into the bag and pulling out another cleaning material, reaching for a gun.

"Do you know what you're doing?"

She rolled her eyes at him as she expertly began taking it apart. "When I was younger my father's idea of father-daughter bonding time was teaching me to fight, and how to handle and clean weapons. This is second nature to me. Quite calming, actually."

He eyed her curiously before his smirk turned into more of a smile. "I agree."

She smiled back at him before returning her gaze to the weapon in her hands. "I can't believe that they didn't check our bags when we got here. Considering Phelan's a retired detective you'd think searching through other people's belongings would be second nature to him."

"Like I'd let him close to my stuff." Dean snorted.

"You know how he walks with that limp?" Lois pulled a dark strand behind her ear. "Chloe says he was a part of something called the Goodnight Murders some years ago, and that he got injured there."

Dean froze, eyes widening. "Phelan was the detective that survived the Jacob Goodnight massacres?"

Lois looked at him in surprise. "You've heard about these murders?"

"Dad thought that there might be something supernatural about them. Jacob Goodnight left too many religious paraphernalia and the strength and brutality in his murders were just more than what was normal for a human being." Dean explained, hands working on his weapon almost subconsciously as he gazed at her. "This was one _sick_ motherfucker. He was _huge_, and you should have seen the pictures of his corpse. _Fugly_. Pale as fuck, like he'd never had a bit of sunlight on him."

"Are we thinking vampire?"

Dean made a face. "So far I'm not even sure if vampires really exist anymore. There's evidence that they used to exist way back in the day, but they're considered extinct now. And anyway, vamps can only be killed by decapitation, so I'm voting _no_ on the vampire question."

Lois just stared at him, fascination growing with every word that escaped his lips. "So what, hunters hunted them out?"

"That's the general idea…and if there's any still out there they're keeping a low profile." Dean shrugged, going back to the topic at hand. "But this Goodnight, the way the bodies were found, the way their bones were broken-that was some _serious_ strength. I remember dad beginning to gather information to hunt him, sure he was some sort of supernatural creature, but then the news coverage of his death hit." Dean snorted. "Dad was disappointed he was just human."

Lois shook her head, never having been able to take to John Winchester, and the more she heard the less she liked him.

"Sammy made that _exact_ same face." Dean shook his head, reassembling his gun. "Then again, Sammy made that face _a lot_ when it came to dad."

Lois could feel tension coiling in Dean, could understand it. From the little she knew Dean's brother and father just hadn't gotten along, ever, and Dean had always been caught in the middle. Despite his bravado and carefree ways it was obvious that family meant a lot to Dean and that this split, this rupture, was affecting him greatly.

"How do you guys know Wade and his crew?" Dean suddenly veered from the topic drastically, not looking up from what he was doing. "From the way you interact with each other I realize this isn't the first time you've had to deal with them."

"This is Smallville, you basically know everyone." Lois shrugged, gaze going to the pieces she was cleaning as well. "Adam knew them from when he'd broken his foot while playing some years back. It was during that time that Wade and the bunch got hurt, so they did their physiotherapy at the same time. Chloe and I were having coffee with him one day in the Beanery when they arrived and decided to hang out. Needless to say I could understand why Adam doesn't hang around with them anymore."

"People seem to meet all sorts in physiotherapy." Dean snorted.

Lois looked up at that, intrigued. "That's funny, he said something similar but about road trips."

"I'm sure he did." Dean sneered.

Lois opened her mouth to ask him if this was a clash of Alpha Males, when suddenly flies buzzed loudly, seeming to appear out of nowhere. There were at least five of them, large ones, and quite fearless as they came towards the humans, flying all around them.

"The hell?" Dean whacked at the flies as they tried to land on him. "Where the hell did they come from?"

She didn't answer out of the fear of the disgusting things flying into her mouth should she open it. She grabbed Dean's pillow and used it in front of her like a swatter, trying to keep the flies from landing on her.

Then, all of a sudden, the flies flew away and were gone.

Lois slowly lowered the pillow, eyes wide, looking all around her. "What the hell was that?"

"Not normal." Dean stood and went to his EMF device, which remained unresponsive. "This didn't pick up any spirit activity."

"Is that a good thing?" Lois asked, not sure she water to know the answer.

"It could be nothing, I mean there's enough things in this place for there to be flies everywhere." Dean slapped the machine a couple of times, and yet nothing. "If there was even a _hint_ of ghostly activity this would have picked up on it."

"There's probably dead rats all over this place." Lois was a little nervous, but told herself to stop with the need to overprotect her cousin. They'd just been flies. Nothing big. And Dean's EMF device hadn't picked up anything. It was nothing.

Dean moved around the room, EMF device held out in front of him, obviously not giving up. He paused in front of the mirror and frowned as he stared at his own reflection.

"What is it?" Lois asked from the bed, slowly standing.

"I don't know…there's just something about this mirror that bothers me." He muttered to himself, going towards the glass and resting his hand on it, his EMF device as good as dead. "I'm probably just reaching though."

Biting on her bottom lip, Lois gazed down and picked up the bottle she'd brought with her, giving it a little shake. "Want a drink?"

He looked up from the device, hesitated for a ver long moment, before slowly nodding as he put the device down. Sending one last look over his shoulder at his reflection, Dean shook his head and joined her side.

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"This is _such_ a bad idea." Pete mumbled for what seemed like the hundredth time as they took the stairs up towards the higher levels, a camera with night-vision in his hand, a flashlight in hers.

Earlier on the blonde had played around and tried to take his camera away from him to film him as well but he'd been surprisingly enough adamant that he didn't want to be on the video tape, turning his back the second she'd pointed the lens on him, announcing that if it was just his voice he'd have a chance to plead innocence (and that he wasn't there) should they get in trouble for any reason. She'd wanted to point out that he was the only African American on this trip so there really wouldn't be anyway he could cast doubt as to the identity of who'd helped her break the law, but the blonde decided to just back down from this one since he was helping her. So she'd passed him back the camera and let herself be the main star of his filming.

"All we need to do is find out the location of the secret room where all the best parties was held, take a couple of pictures to study, and then we can go back." Chloe promised, not looking up from the blueprints she was studying, shining the light on it. "No one is going to find us."

"What makes you think that the room wasn't destroyed in the fire?" Pete wanted to know, filming around them at the decay and destruction. "This place is seriously disgusting."

"The fire started in the Master Bedroom, which is the whole top floor." Chloe shone the flashlight up at their heads for emphasis. "According to news clippings and some old time black and white videos I managed to get my hands on, the secret party room was located on either the floor beneath it…or the next floor. And that would be at least another floor above us."

"I just want you to know that if we get violently killed before this is all over-that I blame you." Pete declared pointblank as they continued making their way up the stairway.

"Duly noted." Chloe nodded as they ascended, the beam of her flashlight showing them the way ahead.

"Shouldn't those blueprints show you _exactly_ where the secret room is?" Pete called as he hurried behind her, nearly tripping in his hurry.

"Pete, if you wanted to build a secret room, would you _really_ put it in the _blueprints_?" Chloe rolled her eyes as she took the steps two at a time, sending him an incredulous look over her shoulder before returning her attention in front of her.

"Uhm, _yeah_! How else can you build it?" Pete countered, steadily keeping a step behind her.

"Well, obviously they were in the _first_ blueprints…but I'm thinking those were destroyed and replaced with this one." Chloe declared with surety before suddenly stopping and shining her light up ahead of her.

"What is it?" Pete frowned, reaching her side, following her gaze with the camera lens.

"There's a door up there. There isn't a door in these blueprints." Chloe gazed down at the blueprints with a frown. "I don't have keys."

Pete groaned, turning the focus from the large door to her face, zooming in. "Are you telling me that this was all for _nothing_?"

Hurrying up the last steps, Chloe tried the knob while shoving at the door with her shoulder, the door opening with a loud and menacing grunt. She whooped excitedly, thrusting a fist into the air before jumping around to face him, grinning brightly. "Come on! It's unlocked!"

"Lucky us." Pete mumbled as he followed after.

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Jenna and Sean were going at it again.

Loudly.

Lois and Dean snickered to each other as they listened to Jenna assuring Sean he was a "god" for about the hundredth time. They both visibly doubted that Sean was any sort of patron deity of sex, and felt a little bad for Jenna. The girl was so horribly and obviously desperate to please Sean and stroked his ego too much.

The older duo were laying on Dean's now cleared bed, bottle of whisky between them, as they listened to the teenagers making some godawful sounds that the young adults feverishly hoped they themselves didn't make while in the throes of passion.

"First time."

Lois threw her head back and laughed, cheeks flushing. "Tommy Garrett in my bedroom. He was one of the soldiers the General was training."

"In your _bedroom_?" Dean appeared awfully impressed at this feat. "How'd you manage that without your father finding out?"

"That would imply he actually spent time in the house." Lois snickered, shaking her head as she grabbed the bottle and took a gulp of the liquid, hissing at the strong yet familiar taste as it slid down her throat. "You. Same question."

"I can't believe I'm playing this." Dean grumbled without any heat, seeming much more entertained than annoyed. "Mrs. Macy, my English teacher, on her desk during after-school detention."

"You're lying!" Lois burst out into scandalized laughter. "That's the plot of almost _every_ school-oriented porno _ever made_!"

"I swear! All true!" Dean snickered, stealing the bottle form her and taking a _very_ long gulp. "She had huge tits and kept wearing these low-cut shirts and bending over all the time! I honestly couldn't be blamed for giving in."

"I still don't believe that." Lois chuckled, darkly amused with the story, and reluctant to admit that she could actually see a teacher preying on a young Dean Winchester. He must have been a seriously attractive teenager. "How old?"

"A couple of weeks away from turning fourteen."

"_Damn_." The brunette shook her head. "I was sixteen."

Dean nodded, leaning hard against the bed's backrest, eyes narrowing slightly on the bottle between them. He seemed to have something on his mind that bothered him, all the fun and cheeky amusement they'd managed to build seeming to completely disappear as his hazel gaze met hers. "Chloe asked me this, you know, about losing my virginity. I didn't answer her because, well, she's a kid…but I thought it was a really weird question for her to be asking a guy."

Lois frowned as she hugged one of Dean's pillow, letting out a sigh as her gaze shifted to the faded pattern on the sheets. "I think she might have lost her virginity while she was gone for that week."

"She's a _kid_." Dean frowned, eyes flashing darkly.

"She was close to the age _you_ were when you lost yours." But, yes, that did make Lois feel somewhat sad as well. "She hasn't said anything, but just look at her body. That's a woman's body…not a kid's. If she didn't lose her virginity I can't think of any other thing that'd make her body mature so much so quickly."

Dean was still, his voice low. "You think some sicko-?"

"No!" Lois shook her head, quite sure of this. "Ever since Hope-I think she might have gone _looking_ to lose it."

"Look," Dean ran his long, lean fingers through his sandy blonde hair. "I know this is none of my business, it's not my family or anything, but your uncle needs to step up. That kid needs him."

"She has me." Lois felt a little defensive at the insinuation that Chloe was lacking something.

Dean gave a little grunt of annoyance. "That kid needs her father to put down the law and give her some sort of pecking order. Boundaries. Restrictions. _Something_."

"Uncle Gabe would be useless." Lois hadn't meant to sound so resentful as she spat that out. "I think I've told you before that he's not the type of person to put his foot down." She reached for the bottle. "And for the record, I put down the law. You think you can do better? Then stick around in Smallville and see just how _easy_ it is to tell Chloe what she can or can't do."

Any good mood was completely gone replaced by prickly defensiveness.

Suddenly Jenna and Sean could be heard yelling at each other, obviously things having progressed in a very unhappy direction since the last "oh my god you're so great!" that Lois and Dean had been treated to.

A door slammed.

"YOU JERK!" Jenna screamed as she could be heard storming away.

Apparently Lois and Dean weren't the only ones who's good mood had evaporated into nothingness.

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"I can't believe we actually found it." Pete whispered as they stepped into the dark and deserted hidden room, his night vision taking everything in.

"Doubting Thomas." Chloe grinned as she looked around her, feeling incredibly proud for having found the place despite Pete's little comments in the background which _so_ weren't as quiet as he'd thought they were. "The place seems untouched by the fire, even the ceiling looks pretty intact."

Pete turned the camera towards a section in the back. "Look at all those doors. I wonder where they go?"

"Probably to the many secret passages in this place." Chloe grinned, excitement growing in her. "This is so awesome!"

"I wish we could find a light switch, I'd love to be able to see this place without the night vision on." Pete mumbled as he continued to film, turning in slow circles, trying to get in everything all around them. "Do you think the electricity still works here?"

"It should." She shone her light on the smooth, circular walls, finding nothing that even remotely resembled a light switch of any kind. "They had to have had some sort of switch but it seems they were being creative about it. No switches anywhere."

"Rich people." Pete grumbled, continuing to slowly circle, zooming in and out to get different sections and views.

Chloe chuckled in amusement. "Indeed."

"So tell me, Miss Sullivan," Pete turned the focus back on her, trying out a horrible British accent. "How does it feel to have found, against all odds, the hidden Luthor _shindig_ room?"

"One, it's the _ballroom_." Chloe rose a finger, counting off her issues with what was going. "Two, the whole fake entrance through the extremely large grandfather clock was genius and that was why it was obvious. Three, _please _never try faking a British accent ever again…" her grin was utter mischievous. "And _Four_, it feels fricken _amazing_!"

Pete chuckled in amusement as he filmed her.

Posing for the camera, holding the flashlight up as the Statue of Liberty did her torch, Chloe batted at a lone fly which flew around her face.

Pete did the same as a couple more flew passed the lens of his camera, obscuring the view slightly. "I hate these things."

"I wonder where they've come from all of a sudden." Chloe turned to look behind her in the darkness before suddenly a cloud of flies descended on them furiously, swarming over them in vast quantities and fierce determination. The blonde covered her mouth to keep her scream quiet as she dropped to her knees and pulled her shirt up and cover her head, holding the opening closed tightly, keeping them from landing on her face.

Pete yelled and could be heard stumbling. "Get off! Get off! Get-fuck! I swallowed-!" The floor moved as he threw himself to the ground. "Go away!"

Chloe dropped the rest of the way to the ground and curled up into a fetal position, the flies seeming to be everywhere around her, so loud and overwhelming that she couldn't even hear Pete anymore. All she could hear was that incessant buzzing, all she could feel were the harsh caresses of the bugs, so rough, so heavy, at times they felt like a hand brushing against her. Panic rose in her throat but she bit back the need to scream, closing her eyes tightly, wishing the sound would go away.

Suddenly the noise diminished, the feelings, the brushes, softening.

They were leaving.

She remained that way until the buzzes melted into silence, and the brushes disappeared.

There was silence.

Deafening silence.

And yet for some reason she didn't trust to pull out of her defensive position.

A hand came down hard on her shoulder.

She let out a cry.

"It's just me! They're gone." Pete hurriedly pulled his hand off. "Are you okay?"

Chloe slowly unfurled from her position and sat up, letting go of her shirt and letting it fall to her shoulders once more, head free and breathing in air. Hey eyes weren't accustomed to the darkness and it took a while to realize that her flashlight was missing, and that Pete was seeing her through the night vision of her camera. "My flashlight must have broken when it fell. Can you see it?"

He scanned the room. "No, but it's no surprise, there's tons of junk in this place." He returned the focus on her. "What do you think the invasion of the flies was all about?"

"Maybe we accidentally disturbed them while they were on some dead rats or something?" Chloe accepted the hand he offered her, helping her stand as she brushed her clothes off and looked around her. "I don't know."

The sound of the camera zooming in on her face could be heard. "You always get me into the weirdest situations. I swallowed a fly you know."

That accusation made her lips twitch in amusement as she gazed into the lens. "Your life would be boring with me."

He scoffed. "My life's been more interesting than you even know."

That intrigued her, the blonde's smile growing, all her fear from before melting away as she grinned. "Right back atcha."

Pete chuckled.

"Is the camera alright?" She questioned. "Did it get bet broken or-?"

"No, everything seems fine. It's recording without a problem and the night vision is spot on." He declared. "I accidentally dropped it earlier on but it seemed to have filmed through the Attack of the Flies."

"We'll transfer what you recorded onto my laptop's hard drive tomorrow and I'll go over the footage." She gazed around her and hugged herself, rubbing her arms.

"Good, so on that note I vote we get out of here. Place creeps the crap out of me."

"I second that vote. This is enough for tonight." Chloe looped her arm around his. "Let's go back before someone get's brutally murdered."

Pete snickered, shaking his head as he lead her away, closing the door behind them.

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"Damn _asshole_!" Jenna growled as she stormed away towards her room, unable to believe that Sean could call her by her _sister's_ name while cumming! And then for him to say that it wasn't bad for him to fantasize as long as he didn't touch? Her sister! SISTER! Why would he even fantasize about her? Had that bitch shown Sean interest? She'd always wanted everything that Jenna had! But she couldn't have Sean! Not Sean! Never!

Fuming, unable to believe that she now had to deal with _Laura_ of all people, Jenna turned the corner and cried out as she seemed to run smack into a group of huge flies.

She wanted to scream but the terror left her mute as she flung her hands out trying to whack the things away, and yet they were determined, not leaving her.

Disgust and dear filled her stomach while rising up her throat, and yet her mouth was clamped tightly.

One of the flies tried to fly up her nose.

Crying out in horror, Jenna breathed out hard and the thing shot out, bringing her hands to cover her nose.

She closed her eyes tightly, scared that the flies would try and brush up against them.

That was why she didn't see the looming figure behind her until a large hand clamped over her mouth and she was yanked into the starving darkness behind her.

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**TBC**


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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_Chloe awoke in a white night gown in a room she didn't recognize, the bedroom window having been boarded in and yet broken boards proved that recently they'd been broken outwards. The lights were off and the only reason she could see was because of the candles lit all over the place. It was probably supposed to cast a romantic vibe but they did nothing but freak her more as she sat up in bed and hugged the sheets to her. She searched the darkest corners of the room, terrified, knowing she wasn't alone, and when the shadows shifted and the male appeared it was all she could do to keep from screaming in fear._

_"Fear not my child." The teenaged male in whom Preacher Hathaway resided announced as he slowly made his way towards the bed, working on the buttons of his shirt. "Your whole life has been for this purpose."_

_ The fourteen year old pressed up against the headboard, eyes wide in horror, knowing this trapped, prey-like feeling all too well._

_ Hadn't she felt the same when her mother had tried to kill her?_

_ Twice?_

_ "Where's my cousin?" Her voice wasn't as strong and brave as she would have wanted it to be, the sound instead small and terrified. "What have you done with her? And where's Dean?"_

_ "He's a sturdy thing, I had been _**_sure_**_ he'd die, and yet when you finally stopped fighting me and I awoke he was right there, a little pained but otherwise dandy." The man announced as he reached the bed, crawling up on his knees. "His death, and that of the whore, will bring joy to the lord."_

_ Her eyes widened in horror as she suddenly realized what was going on. "You're going to crucify them!"_

_ "Sinners need to _**_hang_**_." He replied, yanking the sheets off of her viciously, leaving her feeling vulnerable and alone. "Only the pure may live in god's kingdom."_

_ "You're sick." She hissed, pressed hard against the headboard._

_ The preacher didn't answer, only lunged for her._

_ Throwing herself to the side Chloe tumbled off of the bed to the ground, grunting as she stumbled to her feet. He grabbed her arm and she fought, screaming and clawing and somehow they'd knocked over the side table covered in candles, the flames quickly consuming the bed. He let go of her a second to try and put it out with a large jar of water, and Chloe took the opportunity to make it towards the window. She pulled herself halfway through the window by the time he grabbed her legs once more, pulling her almost completely in, her hands on the window frame the only thing keeping her from being dragged within the now raging inferno._

_ The door to the room was open and people were yelling, but flames blocked their entrance, his jar of water obviously not having been enough as the wood quickly caught fire with hunger._

_ "The Lord's work _**_will_**_ be done!" Hathaway yelled._

_ "Screw! You!" Struggling, Chloe freed a foot and slammed it into his face, feeling the bones in his nose crack as he let go with a howl, giving her the chance to pull herself out of the room and onto the roof of the wrap around porch._

_ The blonde made to jump off but the followers of Preacher Hathaway fanned out beneath her, and she knew that should she jump she would be injured and captured. That didn't bode well for any chance of saving her cousin and Dean. _

_ "The Lord's work WILL be done!" Hathaway yelled as he began to pull himself out of the window._

_ Screaming, Chloe looked around her before carefully making her way to the side and it was only thanks to the adrenaline in her system that she was able to pull herself up the half-broken trellis to the roof, looking around her, terrified. Beneath her, her feet began to warm uncomfortably as the fire continued to spread in the house below._

_ And then Preacher Hathaway began climbing up onto the roof._

_ She was going to die._

_ A stray tear made its way down her cheek as her heart throbbed in pain._

_ She didn't want to die._

…

Waking up with a silent scream Chloe tumbled out of bed and barely managed to grab the trashcan she'd placed there before going to bed, vomiting out the contents of her stomach. Her body shook violently with each heave, and by the time it was over she had only enough strength to lay on the floor next to the trashcan and close her eyes as silent tears made their way down her face. Her body shivered, her mouth was bitter, and her heart hurt. It was only because Lois' bedroom wasn't on the other side of the wall that Chloe allowed herself the freedom of actually sobbing, although even now she did it softly, resting her arm over her eyes as she did so.

It was very rare that she allowed herself this weakness, and even now she felt bad for indulging in this self-pity. She'd survived Hope. She'd survived her mother. How was it then that their memories could hurt her more than the actual events? How could she be so disgustingly weak? Dr. Masters believed that Chloe was the one who was to blame for the most of what was happening to her, that deep down inside she didn't believe that she should have survived, that she didn't deserve it…and that she was subconsciously punishing herself over and over again. If that was so, then Chloe hated herself terribly.

Once the sobs had subsided, the blonde finally sat up, taking in a deep breath as she reached for the bag under the bed, pulling it out. She unzipped it and shuffled within, grabbing a bottle of water and using it to wash out her mouth, spitting into the trashcan before tying the plastic bag to keep the stench from making her queasy.

Putting the bottle of water back into the bag, Chloe reached for the bottle of Grey Goose Adam had gotten for her. She thanked every deity out there for Adam and alcohol as she opened the bottle and took a long gulp. As always it was horrible without another taste to mask it, but after the first couple of gulps came the numbness she needed, sought. It came quicker thanks to her empty stomach, and she welcomed the buzz. The blonde never drank enough to get _terribly_ drunk, couldn't trust herself not to do something to give everything away to Lois if she did, but she knew just how much she could drink so that she was a little more than tipsy and numb to the pain, both mental and physical. Dr. Masters called her behavior as "hiding from the issue", Chloe called it surviving.

Pushing up to her feet, Chloe shook her head, taking another sip before closing the bottle, placing it in the bag, and pushing it under her bed once more. She shivered at the rush down her spine before picking up the bag from the trashcan. There was no way she could sleep with the hint of vomit in the air. At her home she could usually just sneak outside and place the bags in the large garbage containers, but here she'd have to get to the kitchen and place it in the big trash can there.

She considered changing clothes, but figured everyone was either sleeping or screwing right now, so they wouldn't notice her. She stuffed her feet into her slippers and stepped out of the room, wearing only the tight camisole she only wore when sleeping since it was a low cut and showed her scar, and underwear shorts. The blonde stepped out of the room, looking side to side before closing the door behind her. The place was dark, but that was why she'd brought her flashlight along.

Yawning into her hand, Chloe made her way slowly, fighting the aftershocks of terror in her system, reminding herself that it'd only been a dream.

She needed to get over this!

No way was she going to get on the meds people with her issues were slaves to!

She was stronger than this.

She _was_.

A fly buzzed past her.

Chloe batted it away with her flashlight, not paying much attention to it.

Another fly.

And another.

Eyes widening in realization, Chloe dropped the bag of vomit and crouched down, covering her nose and mouth with her hands seconds before the swarm reappeared, descending on her with fury. She cursed herself for not having changed clothes before coming out, trying to peek out through her slitted eyes yet the flies were relentless as they flew around her, more daring ones landing on her. She shook her head and body, trying to get them off, yet never removing her hands from her face, refusing to let those things close to her mouth and nose. The thought of one flying up her nostril was horrifying.

She needed to get out of here back to the relative safety of her room!

Stumbling to her feet, Chloe pushed forwards before running into a hard body and giving a little cry as the force sent her backwards a couple of steps, forcing the teenager to remove her hands from her face to try keep balance. The flies were still around her, yet not in as thick a formation as before, and those that remained weren't enough to distract the blonde as her wide-eyed gaze fixed on the shadow-covered figure before her. She couldn't really make out who he was or what he really looked like in the darkness, but she knew without a doubt that he wasn't one of the people who'd come to this place with her.

He was someone else.

And he was _huge_.

A part of her wondered in horror if he was the one who'd watched her bathe earlier on.

The teen opened her mouth to scream but his large hand wrapped around the bottom of her face, completely covering her mouth and sealing any noise as he roughly twirled her around and slammed her back against the wall, keeping her pinned there with just _one hand_.

This man was strong.

Inhumanly so.

His other hand reached out and his large, clumsy, calloused fingers pressed uncomfortably hard against the intersecting scars over her chest. His head tilted as he observed them in what seemed like a mixture of fascination and reverence.

She scratched at the hand holding her, trying to scream at the top of her lungs and yet no sound escaped his hold. Finally she bit down on the meat of his palm, teeth sinking in and drawing blood.

A half choked snarl escaped his lips as he pulled his hand free long enough for her to let out a loud scream. Before she could let out another the man yanked her away from the wall only to shove her head back harder, her knees buckling at the blinding pain that spread through her. Darkness began to spot in her vision as strength left her body. Her eyes rolled back, and the last thing she remembered before blacking out was being thrown over his shoulder and disappearing into all-consuming blackness.

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The whole thing with Dean had been a bust and Lois had returned to her room in a bad mood and feeling very much like a fool. And really, what had she expected? She should have seen this coming. Given the little she knew about Dean she knew that his father was like hers except slightly deranged and somewhat obsessive, who would have probably been somewhat brutal in his punishments, fanatical in his rules. He'd have had boundaries in place, would never let Dean or his brother get out of line without feeling dire repercussions. It was probably why "Sammy" had been so eager to part ways with his family. She should have figured that if Dean stayed he somewhat shared his father's views. Should have been prepared for him to question things, to comment. When had he ever curved his tongue or kept his peace before?

And yet it'd been a surprise and a slap on the face. It made her feel like all she'd done hadn't been enough, that she was a failure, that she wasn't giving Chloe everything she needed.

And she probably wasn't.

That was most likely why she was so upset.

She knew he was right.

Suddenly a scream echoing throughout the hallways jerked Lois out of her misery as she jolted up into bed, eyes wide as she recognized the sound.

_Chloe_.

Tumbling out of the bed, Lois slipped her feet into her boots and pulled on her shirt, head hurting somewhat from the rum but she pushed it to the back of her mind and surged out of the room. Lights were coming on and some of the doors she passed opened to reveal those who'd been sleeping within, but she passed them without a second thought, following the trajectory of what she'd guessed was the origin of the scream. The fact that it was in the opposite direction of Chloe's room gave her a sick stomach, and that feeling didn't get any better when she turned the corner and found a small group consisting of Dean, Phelan, Beels already there, dressed in their sleeping clothes.

Behind her she could hear Sean, Pete, Trevor and Margaret catching up and stopping as well.

"Did you hear that?" Sean wanted to know. "What was it? Was it a scream? Was it real?"

"Is someone playing a joke?" Trevor's voice wavered.

"Everyone's supposed to be in their bedrooms." Phelan declared.

"That sounded like Chloe." Pete yelled.

Lois pushed passed the others to Dean's side, where a flashlight and plastic bag were discarded on the ground, the wood of the wall dented in slightly and coated in blood.

Dean nudged the bag with his shoe. "Looks like spew."

"Vomit?" Lois felt her stomach drop. "She had another nightmare."

"What do you _mean_ they aren't in their rooms?" Phelan snapping at Beels caught Lois' attention as she turned towards their driver. "Where else _would they be_?"

"How am I supposed to know?" Beels looked away, unable to meet the man's gaze.

"Because _you_ signed those three up!" Phelan growled, taking a step towards Beels. "You vouched for them! So where _are_ they?"

"Where's Jenna?" Trevor turned to Sean.

Sean shrugged, apparently not all that worried. "We had a fight. You know she tends to avoid me for a couple of days as punishment when that happens." He ran fingers through his blonde hair. "She's probably still in her room."

"No, she isn't." Margaret announced as she hugged her shawl around her tighter. "I checked all the rooms on my way here and her room was empty."

Phelan turned his attention back to Beels. "That's two missing, teenaged girls! The two girls Wade was making _no secret_ of his attraction to."

"Have you _looked_ at the guy?" Beels finally snapped back. "He doesn't _need_ to resort to these methods to get laid! Especially not by horny teenaged girls!"

"Hey!" Lois growled, taking a menacing step towards him. "You be careful what you say about my little cousin."

"_Little_?" Beels snorted. "Have you _seen_ her body? She's been getting a good ramming in her, who's to say it's not Wade or his boys doing the job and they're not all just having some fun out there?" His gaze went to where Dean was before returning to her. "She probably learnt all about having a good time from _you_."

Lois lost it, and she didn't realize she'd punched Beels until the man was on the floor cursing her off vilely and screaming about a broken nose.

"Does anyone else hear that?" Dean suddenly spoke, apparently not interested in the man's plight, eyes narrowed as he gazed around him.

"Hear what?" Sean frowned.

Silence fell upon the group as the soft sound of a piece of music drifted to them in the hallway.

"It sounds like a ringtone." Pete mumbled, going towards the wall and pressing his ear to the wood. "And it sounds like it's in the _wall_."

"You said this place had secret passageways didn't you?" Lois turned to Margaret.

"The stories say so but we've never been able to find any." The old woman declared.

"Who's cell could that be?" Trevor wanted to know. "Ours were all taken away. I mean, even Mr. Beels' was taken away, and Ms. Margaret says she doesn't have one."

Phelan turned and hurried away, presumably to find where he kept their cellphones stashed away.

"_Bitch_." Beels continued to whine and complain on the ground, holding his bloodied nose. "This is all being taken way out of context! I bet you those two girls are just having a _good time_."

"There's blood on that wall man!" Pete snapped at him. "And we heard screams."

Margaret crossed herself, whispering softly something that sounded like a rendition of Hail Mary.

"There's got to be an entrance somewhere." Dean growled to himself. "A hidden lever, a lock, grip holes…_something_!"

"If it's Wade and his guys they're not going to need a secret passage." Lois growled, running her hand over her hair.

"What do you mean?" Dean's eyes narrowed as he turned towards her.

Pete took his position, checking the wall.

"Well, if rumors can be believed, they've got a talent of getting anywhere they want to be, even if it's a locked vault, without breaking any locks." Lois wanted nothing more than to call Adam right now and demand more information on his acquaintances, but considering she'd have to wait until Phelan brought their phones she was-.

A scream echoed throughout the hallway.

Dean took off immediately towards the sound, with Pete behind him.

"Was that…Phelan?" Sean squeaked, eyes widening.

Beels frowned, shaking his head. "It can't be."

Margaret continued to cross herself.

Not one to just stand around doing nothing, Lois hurried after Dean and Pete, hearing the others following her. She doubted in this time of uncertainty that anyone would want to be left alone to be picked off if something sinister was _truly_ going on. They were prey, acting just like they should, and that made her feel queasy…and that was before she finally rounded the corner and stumbled to a stop in the doorway of Phelan's room, eyes wide in horror. Her stomach revolted, and it was all she could do to keep from vomiting…Sean not as successful as he spewed behind her after a cry of terror.

The bedroom was covered in blood, and Phelan was hung from the ceiling by a meathook lodged deep into his throat. His body had been mutilated beyond belief given the little amount of time that had transpired, but what terrified Lois even more was his empty eye sockets.

"Jesus." Trevor whispered, apparently able to keep his food better than his friend could. "How could this have happened? He must have been gone only a couple of minutes!"

Beels' eyes were wide in horror. "This wasn't supposed to happen!"

Lois turned towards him and grabbed the man by his collar, shoving him violently against the wall. "_What do you know_?"

"They were just supposed to get to the vault that's on the highest floor. That's all!" Beels looked ready to piss himself. "No one was supposed to be hurt! It was just supposed to be a normal job. In and out with no one the wiser!"

"You were planning on _stealing_ from the premises?" Margaret gasped in horror and scandal.

"No one even knew it was there! And Luthor, who was the only one who knew about it, obviously didn't care enough to come and get it himself! It was up for the grabbing!" Beels pushed Lois away, snapping at the older woman. "No girls were supposed to go missing and no retired detective was supposed to be strung up like meat in a butcher's storage locker!"

"The phones aren't here." Dean announced, finally leaving the room with Pete still inside. "Whoever did this trashed the place and must have taken them. Phelan probably walked in on the person while this was going on and that was why he was killed this viciously and out in the open instead of being taken like Jenna and Chloe were."

"Where could he have vanished off to though?" Pete had his back to the body, visibly ignoring it desperately as he gazed at the walls. "There _has_ to be a secret entrance somewhere in this room. This wasn't Wade or the guys."

"How could you possibly know that?" Beels snapped at him, obviously happy to believe that Wade and his friends were killers.

"It's like what Chloe was saying earlier tonight. _Goodnight_." Pete declared, finally forcing himself to look at Phelan's body, going paler as he did so. "Look at his eyes…or…uh…lack of them."

"I was thinking the same thing." Lois whispered, not wanting to have even considered it but now that Pete was thinking the same she had to give the idea some credence.

"What are you two talking about?" Sean groaned, visibly shaking, running the back of his palm over his mouth.

"Jacob Goodnight. This is his MO." Dean was quick on the uptake.

"Wait, wait, I remember this. You're talking about the Goodnight Murders." Beels frowned, running his hand over the back of his head nervously.

"The what?" Margaret frowned, hugging her shawl closer to her as if that offered some sort of protection.

"Some years ago this psycho went batshit crazy, had him a good lil massacre." Beels replied with a narrowed gaze. "He was known for his meathooks, removing the eyes, and almost inhuman strength. Phelan worked on the case. It's why he has a bum leg. But Phelan killed the fucker."

"This has to be a copycat then." Trevor pointed out. "It couldn't possibly be this Goodnight guy. He's dead."

"When's that ever stopped them before?" Dean growled as he left the room, hurrying towards his room, probably in search of his EMF reader and rocksalt gun.

A part of Lois wanted to go after him, but another part of her, a stronger part, forced herself into the room.

Chloe could be strung up somewhere in the walls like this.

Closing her eyes, Lois took in a deep breath, forcing her rising nausea and hysteria down as best as she could.

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Groaning, head _killing_ her, Chloe blinked her eyes a couple of times before finally having the strength to open them fully. She closed her eyes immediately afterwards as nausea rose in her throat and the shadows spun dizzyingly. Her hand trailed from the rough floor to her head, to the throbbing pain, coming back away coated in warm wetness that held the faint aroma of metallic. Blood. She was bleeding. This _so_ wasn't good.

Opening her eyes slower this time, Chloe fought the vicious dizziness and narrowed her eyes, trying to get her foggy gaze to clear up. She seemed to be in a cage of sorts, and that in itself didn't seem promising.

Forcing herself to sit up, the blonde leaned hard against the bars, her vision slowly clearing to show a large room with slight fire scorches yet other than the unholy clutter seemed to be in perfect condition. Either this was a part of the top level that hadn't been as badly destroyed as the rest of the place, or the reports of the damage had been vastly exaggerated.

Crying drew her attention as she slowly crawled towards the front of the cage, holding onto the bars as she narrowed her eyes, trying desperately to finish clearing up her vision. And when it finally _did_ clear she wished it hadn't, because then she wouldn't have to see Jenna chained up to the wall, slices cut into her body in patterns and symbols.

"Jenna?"

The cheerleader gave a little cry in fear before she realized who it was that was speaking. "You're awake!"

"Who did that to you?"

"I don't know." Jenna's eyes filled with more tears as her bottom lip trembled with barely restrained sobs. "He's big, pale, and he looks so _scary_."

"Mental scary or deformed scary?" Chloe tightened her grip on the bars.

"_I don't know_!" Jenna cried out. "Get me out of here! Get me loose!"

"Don't scream, we don't know where he is right now." Chloe hissed. "He could be right in the other room."

"That's easy for you to say!" Jenna snapped, tugging on her chains desperately. "He hasn't decided to draw on you with a _knife_!"

"True, but I'm not exactly going to have a holiday here after he's finished with you, am I?" She felt a little bad for the horror that entered Jenna's eyes as she burst out crying, but Chloe needed the darker haired blonde to understand that she needed to be smart if she wanted to escape this in one piece. "Now stay quiet. We don't need him knowing we're talking. He could come up here and shut us up."

Jenna just continued to cry.

Shaking her head, Chloe tried her bars, grunting as she shook them with all her might, but none of them would budge. The gaps between the jagged bars weren't big enough for her to stick her hands out through them without getting cut and sliced up, but she was able to feel with her fingers and realize that there was a padlock keeping her firmly inside.

Things were just getting better and better.

"SEAN!" Jenna began to scream, tugging on her chains, the wrists held above her so abused they were beginning to bleed. "SEAN! SEAN! SEAN! SEAN! SEAN!"

"Shut up!" Chloe hissed.

"SEAN!" Jenna screamed louder, apparently beginning to lose it. "SEAN! HELP ME! HELP!"

Flies began to buzz around the room.

Suddenly the door on the other side of the room was kicked open, and a huge man entered the room, dragging a large and heavy chain with a meathook at the end. He was covered in blood, but that didn't hide the fact that he was incredibly pale, bald, and with eyes that were inhumanly blue. They were so clear his eyes almost matched his skin color. He was huge, incredibly tall and overly muscular.

Chloe's eyes widened in horror as she recognized him. "_No_."

"SEAN! SEAN! SEAN!" Jenna continued to scream and cry. "SEAN! SEAN! SEAN!"

Chloe felt her voice leave her as she slowly moved backwards towards the back of the cage, slinking into the shadow, fear choking her.

Jacob Goodnight stormed towards Jenna before leaning over her, tilting his head to the side as if examining a weird species.

"SEAN!" Jenna continued to cry. "SEAN PLEASE HELP ME! SEAN!"

"Leave her alone." Chloe's voice was wavering and not half as strong as she would have wanted it, more like a whisper truly. "Stop."

Goodnight turned towards her and eyed her before his gaze lowered visibly to her chest.

Chloe's gaze followed his gaze to her scarred chest, giving a little cry as she raised her camisole, trying to cover up the intersecting scars at the memory of his fascination with them.

"SEAN!" Jenna continued to cry.

Goodnight turned towards her and flexed his hands, his fingernails long and hard, resembling claws almost as he reached out and grabbed her hair viciously, keeping her head still.

"NO!" Jenna screamed. "NO!"

"_Leave her alone_!" Chloe managed a louder cry as she crawled back to the front of the cage, fingers gripping the bars tightly as she rattled them, trying to draw his attention away from Jenna. "LEAVE HER ALONE!"

"_SEAN_!" Jenna was nearly begging in her screams.

Goodnight made a little noise as the fingers of his free hand reached towards her face.

Chloe's heart skipped a beat in terror as she realized what he was going to do, shaking the bars harder in desperation. "NO! **_NO_**! Stop it! Please!"

But he didn't stop, and there was nothing Chloe could do but scream as Jenna's eyes were gouged out of their sockets.

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**TBC**


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Her body shook in dry heaves, her stomach empty and nothing but froth making it passed her lips. The grip on the bars was so tight her knuckles were nearly transparent, the air a nauseating mixture of putridness and strong metallic. A part of her felt guilty for her relief that Jenna's lifeless body had been dragged out of the room by her foot, trailing blood all over the floor, and that Chloe didn't have to gaze at those eyeless sockets anymore. The guilt was worsened by the relief humming through her body at the fact that it hadn't been her.

The only thing that kept her sane were the millions of questions racing through her head. Like, how could Jacob Goodnight be alive? He'd been killed by Phelan, had been shot in his _head_. There'd been a private funeral but she was sure that the morgue would have commented if his body had suddenly disappeared or something. Of course there was always the whole "ghost" theory but this guy wasn't a ghost. No. He was horrifyingly real. Somehow he was still alive and here in Smallville.

Another part of her wondered why in the world would he leave Metropolis and hole up in the dark recesses of Luthor Castle of all places.

And that's when she remembered the unsolved murder of the butler, who's eyes hadn't been in his skull when they'd found his body.

What if Jacob Goodnight had some sort of past connection with Luthor Castle?

What if that butler had been his first kill?

Why wait to show himself now of all times? Why now? Was it just because Phelan was here? Had that triggered his psychosis?

Or was it something else entirely, with Phelan's presence a mere coincidence?

Did Lionel Luthor know more than he was letting on?

Was this all a trap of some sort?

And if so…for _who_?

The girl was close to hyperventilating, wishing more than anything that she wasn't trapped in this cage, close to tears yet refusing to let them fall.

Taking in a deep breath, trying to calm herself, Chloe closed her eyes as she breathed. She needed to find a way out of this cage, and she needed to warn Lois and the others before someone else got hurt.

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Maybe it was because from the first second something about these girls made Dean care-maybe it was that they seemed to find themselves in the most confusing and inexplicable situations and dangers-but Dean had never felt more over his head and incompetent than whenever he was with Lois and Chloe. He'd thought that this time he would be ready for everything, had even been preparing for shit to go down before Lois had arrived with curves, rum and attitude, and yet when Dean hurried into his bedroom he found his weapons and the duffel bag he kept them in completely gone. There was no a trace of them, the only thing having been left was his EMF reader. The only reason Dean had his rocksalt gun and some ammo was because he'd grabbed them before running out when he'd heard Chloe's scream.

First whoever this was took Chloe, then killed Phelan right under Dean's nose, and now had taken the hunter's tools as well.

Dean was taking this all as a personal affront.

Whoever was doing this, whether it was Jacob Goodnight's ghost or Wade and his minions, this was an obvious taunt.

A challenge.

"We need to get the hell out of here." Beels announced, way too shaky and nervous to be in on whatever was going on.

"We can't just leave Chloe here." Pete argued, gaining respect in Dean's books for his unflinching loyalty to the blonde. It was a man like this one that Dean knew he could trust and rely on…which was good considering that other than Lois none of the people in the corridor seemed useful in this sort of situation.

"Look, they're dead and gone man." Sean was way too willing to dismiss his girlfriend as dead, which meant he was either in on this, or was too much of a coward to really care either way.

"Chloe is _not_ dead." Pete glared at the other boy for that.

"Look, even if she managed to get away from _whoever_ is doing this shit-she'd get lost in an instance." Beels was nearly shaking, seeming very close to shitting himself.

"You underestimate my cousin's ability to survive whatever situation she's in." Lois was remarkably calm, although Dean could sense the nervousness in the way her eyes kept darting around.

"What exactly are we thinking this is?" Margaret tightened her shawl around her bony shoulders, tendrils of white hair falling in loose curls in her face. "A ghost? Or those nice young men? Or something else? I'm quite frazzled and confused."

"Lady, who gives a flying _fuck_ what is causing this? People have died!" Beels threw his hands in the air. "We need to get the fuck out of here and call the cops down on this joint. Let _them_ deal with whatever's going on!"

Dean's gaze found Lois', not even needing to speak to her to know what was going through her mind. "Margaret, take the others out to safety and go find help. Lois and I will stay behind and search for the missing."

"I'm staying too." Pete surged forwards.

"No." Lois shook her head. "I won't put you in danger like this."

"Look, I'm not _asking_, I'm telling you." Pete narrowed his eyes, determination in his every feature.

"Kid, it's admirable that you want to help-." Dean began.

"Don't patronize me." Pete snapped with surprising viciousness, interrupting. "I'm coming and that's final. Anyway, you both _need_ me." He folded his hands over his chest. "I have the almost accurate blueprints of this place."

"_What_?" Margaret gasped. "How could you _possibly-_Mr. _Luthor_-!"

"-has _nothing_ on Chloe's hacking and other talents." Pete finished, a hint of pride in his dark eyes. "She wanted to write a story about the hidden ballroom. It's the only reason she came here."

"No one's ever found-." Margaret began.

"She did. _We_ did." Pete raised his chin.

They didn't have the time to be debating all of this.

Dean placed his hand on Pete's shoulder. "We need to see the blueprints." He turned to the others. "Go and get the sheriff."

Beels was already racing away, Sean on his tail.

"Good luck." Trevor whispered before hurrying after his friend.

Margaret eyed those remaining in worry before nodding and turning to follow after the men.

Lois turned to Pete. "Show us those blueprints."

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No guts, no glory.

Chloe'd cut her arms up pretty bad while reaching for the discarded wired that'd been just out of her reach, but a deep cut later she had the hanger in her hands and was furiously straightening out the metal before feeling for the padlock and inserting it. Her eyes were on the main entrance and exit to the room, the one she'd seen Goodnight leave in, the flies disappearing with him. It was like they followed him everywhere. That was good. It was something that she could use in the future to make sure that he didn't catch her when she escaped…if she escaped. So far the padlock was being a bitch and her arms were killing her.

The cage was cold to her bare legs, causing the girl to shiver, hating the way her nipples hardened in the cold in this thin-ass camisole. This was not the way she wanted some _psychopath_ to find her, especially since her track records with psychos weren't good at all. With the exception of her mother, they all wanted to rape her. It seemed as if her virginity was some sort of a curse, and should she make it out of this one alive she was going to lose it immediately-even if it was to Wade.

Wade.

Chloe's eyes widened.

Wade and the guys were supposed to be close by searching for the vault!

Should she risk screaming for help?

Then again…Jenna had and Chloe didn't want to run the risk of that happening to her.

Clearing her throat, the blonde sighed and continued working on the padlock.

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"Why was Chloe interested in this ballroom?" Lois asked, going through the video footage in the camera that Pete had filmed earlier, while Dean and Pete went over the blueprints.

"Said something about a story." Pete shrugged. "I've learnt to just follow orders, take pictures, and let Chloe handle the rest. I'll have a massive headache otherwise."

The brunette nodded her agreement to that statement, deciding that the ballroom had to be where the butler had been found dead.

"These blueprints mightn't be a hundred per cent accurate, but they're our best lead." Dean announced, going through the flashlights in Pete's bag.

Lois was about to turn off the camera when she came across footage of Chloe and Pete being besieged by a swarm of flies similar to, but much larger than, the ones that'd attacked Dean and herself in his room. The brunette watched as the two teenagers swatted the air with their hands before Chloe pulled her shirt over her face as a sort of shield and went to the ground. Soon after Pete dropped the camera and followed it to the ground as well, the lens having incredibly enough fallen in an angle which left it still filming the two teenagers. Pete was trying to follow Chloe's example, pulling his shirt over his face.

But Chloe…

Chloe.

Lois's breathing accelerated as behind the blonde two pairs of long, muscular legs clad in dirty and worn pants came closer and closer.

There was someone there with the teenagers.

The man seemed to ignore Pete, standing with his legs on either side of Chloe's curled up body before he bent down right over her and finally came into view of the camera lens.

The brunette brought a hand to her mouth in a gasp, drawing Pete and Dean's attention on her as the males shared looks before coming to stare over her shoulder on either side of her.

This man in the camera footage was a mountain of a man, deadly pale as if he'd never seen the light of day, and his eyes seemed just pure white. He pressed his hands down Chloe's body roughly, and the girl jerked, but seemed to not realize it was a human. His touch went exactly to where her scar would be, almost as if he already knew it was there.

A vicious growl caused Lois to shiver…and it was only when it grew darker that she realized that it wasn't coming from the footage by from _Dean_.

The young hunter was _growling_ as he glared. "I'm going to kill him."

"Take a number." Pete frowned darkly. "But I don't understand how we didn't realize he was there."

"The both of you had your eyes covered." Lois whispered, her voice choked.

"And if he's a spirit, sometimes they can't be seen by the naked eye, but can be captured on film." Dean's voice was still low with a hint of gravel.

"Spirit?" Pete's voice wavered before he frowned.

"That's Jacob Goodnight." Dean replied, watching as the man finally withdrew from Chloe, the swarm of flies diminishing as the distance between them grew. "I'd recognize that fucked up face anywhere. And those eyes, they're so blue they look just pure white."

"But if he's the one who's doing all this-why didn't he just kill us then and there?" Pete asked a good question, taking the situation a lot better than Lois thought he would.

"Maybe he's only taking people when they're alone." Lois mumbled. "You and Chloe were together, and Dean and I were together when the flies were around…but Jenna and Chloe were most probably alone when they got taken. We know he got to Phelan the second he split from the group."

"But if he's fast and strong enough to do what he did to Phelan so quickly…why would he care if there's more than one person?" Pete kept asking great questions. "He could most probably have taken both Chloe and I out with extreme ease."

"Was there any connection between the Luthors and Jacob Goodnight?" Dean asked, beginning to pace the room, slapping at a fly which flew into his face. "Were any of his belongings or anything at all related to him shipped here maybe?"

"I don't know." Pete frowned. "I think Chloe brought her laptop with her, but there mightn't be any internet connection here, and even if there was I'm not really the hacker she is. I don't even know where to begin looking for that kind of information."

"I'm not much into computers either." Lois admitted, having also relied on Chloe for anything she might need technologically speaking.

"Dammit." Dean growled, his bad mood seeming to darken. "Sammy's usually my technological geek." He stopped pacing and took in a deep breath, obviously calming himself. "We need to make a visit to the kitchen for a container of salt, and then we should probably check out this ballroom. There were other doors in the footage that have to lead to the many different hidden passage ways in this house. It's a start."

"Salt?" Pete frowned in confusion, asking the question Lois had been about to. "Why would we need that?"

"If this is a spirit, it might be our only protection." Dean replied, heading towards the door, reaching into the back of his pants and pulling out a gun. "The only salt rock ammo I have is in here. I'll make every shot count, but if Lois and Chloe stick to their pattern, then this is not going to work for some reason."

"Don't blame _us_." Lois snapped, more annoyed by that comment then she should have been.

"I'm not." Dean sighed, running his hand over his hair.

"Look, I don't know what issues you two obviously have," Pete looked between them. "But _whatever_ Jacob Goodnight is, he's out there and has Chloe." His eyes narrowed. "We need more action and less talk."

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The click was the most beautiful sound she'd ever heard.

Fighting tears of relief, Chloe fumbled the padlock free and pushed the door to her cage open, slipping out with trepidation. She was cold and shoeless, cut up and in great danger of peeing herself from fear. Her gaze spanned the huge room filled with this and that, seeming very much like a hoarder's house. There were mountains of different things, and yet nothing seemed like anything she could use as a weapon. Nothing against Goodnight at least.

Shaking, Chloe looked at one door at one side of the room and then turned to look at the other on the other end, not sure which way to go. Goodnight had gone out the left one and hadn't come back so obviously there was a way out there, but did she really want to go the direction he'd gone in? The other option seemed much better, but what if it just led her to a dead end and made her have lost value time and ground?

On an impulse she took the right, racing as fast as she could before trying the handle and opening it with a shove of her shoulder against the thick oak wood, keeping up the momentum and propelling herself into the dark corridor once it swung open. There were a myriad of hallways and corridors all around her, nevermore had she wished she had those blueprints with her, but she didn't waste time bemoaning her luck. Instead she pushed on, running as fast as she could with bare feet in a darkly lit hallway with multiple objects littering the floor.

Finding a window the blonde tried opening it but it was stuck shut from years of disuse.

Below movement in the darkness caught her attention.

Pulling up the hem of her camisole, Chloe used it to wipe the grime fogging up the glass, eyes widening in relief when she saw Mr. Beels below stumbling towards the house. "Mr. Beels!" She screamed, pounding the window, trying to catch his attention. "Mr. Beels! Up here!"

He didn't hear her.

One step, two step, and then Mr. Beels collapsed face-first onto the ground, a knife protruding out of the back of his head.

Chloe brought her hands to her mouth to silence her scream of horror as she began to take slow steps backwards and away from the window.

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"Which one do we take?" Lois wanted to know as she shone her flashlight on the many different doors the secret ball room had to offer. She hated this place, it gave her the chills. Oh, she could see that this could have been a snazzy get together for the rich and snooty, but right now it was a ghost town of memories and decay that she didn't care for. She'd seen those blueprints, and they'd hinted to the fact that there were _mazes_ of hidden passageway and tunnels in this godforsaken house. And that was that they couldn't truly trust the blueprints either. They were screwed. Good and simple. It pissed her off, and she had to admit deep down inside that that was good because if she wasn't pissed she'd be panicking and worrying and she couldn't be of any use to _anyone_ if she partook in any of those emotions.

"If I were an evil spirit, where would _I_ go?" Pete was taking to the whole supernatural thing surprisingly well, then again, he was used to the meteor freakiness of Smallville, and the supernatural was only a small step away from that, wasn't it?

"If I was my father I'd say that the best way to do this would be to split up." Dean seemed to be talking mostly to himself. "But then again my father would only have come here for a job, would have had backup, and wouldn't have lost so many civilians already."

"John Winchester isn't god." Lois actually didn't like the man all too much, but she figured this wasn't the time to admit that. "_You're_ here…and I wouldn't trust anyone else with Chloe's safety other than you."

That seemed to shock him out of whatever dark place he'd been in his mind, and Dean turned to look at her in silence, millions of confusing things racing over his face before he cleared his throat and looked away. "That one." He shone his flashlight on one of the doors. "We go through that one."

"Why that one?" Pete wanted to know, holding the table leg Dean had broken off for him as a weapon.

"Because given Goodnight's trajectory in the video, that door is the one he most likely came from." Dean shocked Lois and impressed her beyond words by this reasoning. "So it's our best bet."

"I hope the others get help for us soon." Pete whispered as he tightened his hold on the makeshift weapon.

Honestly, a part of Lois hoped that the army would bust through those doors but she knew that that would probably not happen and even if it did it wouldn't happen any time soon, so she kept quiet and tightened her grip on the other table leg Dean had broken and passed onto her. She still had her knife in her boots as in Hope, but she preferred the table leg for now because it would keep whoever at a distance-unless it really was a ghost and then she was screwed. Then again, Hathaway had been a ghost (right?) and he'd gotten his nose broken…or his host had…if this was a ghost was he in his old body using it as a host? Could a ghost do that?

There were just too many questions and not enough answers!

After Hope Chloe and her had tried to become more knowledgeable in the occult, but there was nothing they could find that didn't sound like utter baloney. The internet was a no brainer, there were just too much stupidity posted there, and then in the many different books they'd ordered there'd been too many contradictions that they couldn't figure out which was right and which author had been writing down whatever came to mind.

Dean tried the handle and it turned with a loud creak, the door swinging open with loud complaint. "So much for a silent entry."

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She was running again, stumbling a couple of times in the dim light, yet never staying down for long. Adrenaline and fear mixed in her veins, reminding her far too much of the time in those cornfields in Hope. Each unlocked room was searched, both for a weapon or another way out, each window fought with despite their refusal to open. The bottom of her feet were hurting her, her body was covered in goosebumps both from cold and fear, and that desire to pee kept growing more and more. She didn't want to use one of the dirty bathrooms up here (if she could find one), and she didn't enjoy the thought of peeing in one of the rooms, but the thought of peeing _herself _wasn't very appealing either.

Also, if for some reason her lucked was damnable enough for her to come up against Goodnight again, she didn't want to do so with a full bladder.

Finally, the call of nature was too much for her to take and she pushed into the first unlocked room she could find, leaving the door ajar so that some light could filter in. There was a light switch, and from the light in the cage room she knew that upstairs had electricity, but she didn't want to give away her presence so she just scooted closer into the darkness and lowered her underwear, keeping a good hold of it so that it wouldn't touch the disgusting ground as she added to the filth. A part of her was horrified at stooping to these levels, feeling a little less human, but another part of her couldn't really care less for how unacceptable it was to just pee on the floor of what was probably another bedroom.

When she was finished she rose slightly, shook her hips, and then raised her underwear back in place.

"Where the hell am I _now_?"

Eyes wide as she recognized that voice, Chloe hurried to the door and gazed out in time to see Scott Bowman pass her, scratching his spiky hair. "_Scott_?"

He jumped, twirling around. "FUCKING HELL!"

"_Shhhhh_!" She emerged from the room, finger to her lips. "Keep it down!"

"What?" He snorted. "Scared Phelan and the others are going to realize that you're out of bed and…in your underwear." He paused, raising an eyebrow as he took in her appearance. "Why are you in your underwear?" He then smirked. "Wade's _the man_!"

"This has _nothing_ to do with Wade." Chloe snapped, feeling heat rise up her neck.

"Is it Derek then?" Scott wanted to know curiously. "Because I always wondered if you didn't have a crush on _him_ instead."

Chloe looked both ways before going closer to the older man, keeping her voice down. "There's a murderer here. He's already killed Jenna and Mr. Beels."

Only then did Scott seem to notice the cuts and blood in her arms. "Jesus!"

"Do you know the way back?" Chloe hugged her arms over her chest, rubbing them to try and return some heat to her body.

"No. I must have taken a wrong turn somewhere and I ended up here." Scott gazed around them before gazing down at his tattoo. "Goddammit…I'm running out of juice."

Chloe could see the tattoos much more faded now than they had been earlier on in the evening, eyes narrowing. "How much have you been using them?"

Scott sent her a wary look. "I still don't like you knowing this, and if it wasn't for the fact that one day I wanna bang your cousin-."

"Save the threats for when someone much bigger and _much_ scarier than you isn't going around murdering people." Chloe snapped, not at all impressed. "And if I haven't told anyone what Wade told me while he was drunk up till now, don't you think I'd keep it a secret?"

"I don't know." Scott responded, somewhat hostilely. "We still don't know what happened between the two of you when Wade took you to California with him some months ago. He says he scored…but given your attitude he didn't-or he did and he was _very_ bad."

"_God_!" Chloe couldn't believe this. "We're lost in a place with a psychopath who gets his rocks off by removing _eyes_ and you want to sit down and _gossip_?"

"I don't know that you're not making all this shit up." Scott declared with a scoff, backing up. "You know what? I'm out of here!"

"No! Don't leave me!" Chloe made for him.

With a one finger salut, Scott disappeared through a wall leaving her all alone in the darkness of the room.

"Goddamit Scott!" Chloe pounded at the wall in frustration. "I hope you get stuck in the fucking wall!"

Only after her scream echoed down the hallways did she remember that she was supposed to be hiding.

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There were double-sided mirrors.

"This just keeps getting creepier and creepier." Pete grumbled as he stuck close to them.

"This guy's been watching us all." Lois pressed her hand up against the glass, staring inside at a dark bedroom. "We've never had a moment of privacy."

"You mean you think _every_ mirror is a double-sided one?" Pete gasped. "Even the one in the _bathroom_?"

Lois hugged herself, shivering. "I hadn't thought about that one actually."

Dean brought his hand up to silence them, trying to figure out what that sound was. It was faint. It was distant. But it was there.

As the others fell into silence Dean narrowed his eyes, tilting his head towards the sound, trying to discern what it was. It sounded almost sounded like music, and yet it wasn't.

"The _hell_?" Pete whispered, drawing their attention.

"What is _he_ doing in here?" Lois hissed.

Dean turned to see the room now lit, and Sean leaning up against the closed door, shaking and crying in horror. What was he doing back at the house? Where were Trevor, Margaret and Beels? What had happened?

Sean was far from the overconfident jock he'd been before, now shivering and wiping at the splatter of blood decorating his face. He leaned with his back against the door and looked up at the ceiling, tears falling down his face as he crossed himself over and over again.

"Whose blood is that?" Pete choked.

"Sean!" Lois called, banging on the mirror. "Sean! What happened?"

The blonde jock didn't react to the sound.

The corridors were soundproof.

Great.

Just great.

The mirrors were probably doubly enforced and near unbreakable.

On the other side Sean began batting at the flies that were flying around his face.

Dean's eyes widened, realizing what was going to happen.

Suddenly the door behind Sean was visibly pounded into, the blow nearly sending it flying open and Sean hurtling to the ground. But Sean cried out and pushed harder against the door. One didn't have to read lips to know that he was screaming for help and repeating god's name over and over again as the door continued to be rammed harder and harder from the other side.

"Sean!" Lois began pounding on the mirror. "Find something else to block the door off with!"

"Dude! Turn the lock on the door at least!" Pete was there with her, banging just as hard.

Sean couldn't hear them, didn't know they were there, tears making their way down his cheeks before suddenly the door was rammed so hard that it _did_ fly open, and he was pushed to the ground with the force as there, in the doorway, stood the monster of a man that was Jacob Goodnight.

"Out of the way!" Dean snapped at Lois and Pete, and the second they'd done so he fired, the rocksalt bullets doing nothing more than cracking the glass slightly. "Goddammit!" He fired over and over again and yet the glass was either too strong or his bullets not strong enough.

Sean crawled back on his elbows, pleading, crying, begging.

Jacob Goodnight let the meathook attached to the chains he'd held behind him appear.

Sean began screaming.

"HEY!" Dean slammed the butt of his gun into the cracks in the glass over and over again, trying to break through or at least give _some_ distraction so the kid could escape. "OVER HERE YOU FREAK!" He was banging into that mirror so hard that there must have been _some_ betrayal of it on the other side because Jacob Goodnight looked up at it for a second before throwing the meathook like a fisherman might, the hook imbedding itself in the meat and muscle of Sean's shoulder, causing the blonde teen to howl in agony.

Assured of his catch, Goodnight walked passed him to the mirror and placed his hand on it, narrowed his inhumanly blue eyes.

"He knows…" Pete whispered as he backed away.

Lois gulped, standing her ground.

Dean remained where he was, glaring into the beast's eyes. "I'm here motherfucker! Leave the kid alone and come fight me like a man!"

If Goodnight heard his challenge or not was unclear as the large man turned and walked out of the room, tightening his hold on the chain and dragging a screaming Sean behind him.

"Dean, we have to go." Lois placed her hand on his shoulder. "He knows we're here, we're sitting ducks. We _have_ to keep moving."

He wanted to stay right here, wanted to battle it out with that beast, but there were more lives at stake here than his own. His gaze finally tore from the mirror to rest on Lois' hand on his as he nodded and slowly turned away. "Let's go."

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**TBC**


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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She was horribly lost.

Chloe fought sobs of frustration as she grabbed fistfuls of hair and bit down on her bottom lip to keep from screaming. It seemed like a lifetime ago she'd escaped from the cage room and with each corner she took, every new corridor she tried, the blonde found herself more and more lost. There weren't even any windows around her to give her a basic idea of exactly where she was. She'd gone down stairs and then up stairs and after so many different directions and such she wasn't even sure on what floor she was on anymore. The blonde was tired, scared, and terribly lonely. Also, she was pissed. If she saw Scott again and he was alive she was going to _kill_ him. Seriously. She'd kill him and _enjoy_ it! How _dare _he go and leave her like this? Even if for some reason she was making up the whole murderer part any decent human being would escort a scared and half naked girl back to civilization!

The bottom of her feet were sore and she wanted to just sit down and rest them for a while, but she knew that if she wanted to get out of there alive and see Lois, Pete and Dean again she had to continue on. Also, she needed to find the damned book for Azazel. A part of her wanted to scream for him but she knew that he wasn't able to teleport into the house unless it was her bedroom, and also she didn't like the thought of crying to a demon for help. No. She needed to find the damned book and get it out of the house, and do the same with herself and the others.

A scream and begs echoed throughout the corridor.

Chloe froze, eyes wide in horror as the sound of heavy footsteps and screaming seemed to be getting closer and closer.

She took off running in the opposite direction as fast as her feet would take her, trying each and every door she came across and yet they were all locked and breaking them open would make too much noise, would give away her presence. So she just continued running, biting down on her bottom lip to quiet her cry when she bucked her toe hard against something on the floor, didn't allow her body to crumble to the ground in agony like it wanted to. She pushed on, cursing the fact that this new stretch of corridor had no doors. It was just walls on each side, with a turn in the far end. If she didn't make it to that corner before Goodnight turned this one he'd see her and she'd be done with.

She could hear the screaming getting closer and closer, a part of her recognizing the sound of the male's voice and yet another part of her not wanting to stop and analyze who exactly had been caught. She pushed on forwards, her chest and heart and whole body seeming on fire as she pushed herself passed exertion, finally making it around the corner and sending a look over her shoulder in time to see Goodnight beginning to turn his corner.

Pressing her back hard against the wall, Chloe breathed erratically, trying to force the nausea back as she peered slightly around the corner. There was Goodnight storming his way down the far side of the corridor, dragging a chain behind him, which was somehow connected to…Sean. Sean…there was a meathook in Sean's shoulder!

She pressed a hand to her mouth to silence her gasp.

"PLEASE!" Sean screamed, holding onto the chains as he was dragged on the ground, obviously trying to lessen the tug on his flesh from the hook. "_Please_!"

Goodnight grunted and gave the chains an extra vicious tug, causing Sean to scream in agony.

Chloe closed her eyes as pressed harder against the corridor's wall, knowing that she was going to get caught. The corridor in front of her was long, straight, with no place to hide. There was no way she could run or hide. She was going to get caught again…and she was going to have her eyes gouged out.

Pressing harder into the wall, Chloe felt something behind her give way and before she could even scream she phased through the wall and fell onto the other side onto a warm body. She opened her mouth to scream but a hand came over her lips, muting her cry, the other wrapping around her body tightly to stop her struggles.

"Stay quiet!" A voice hissed in her ear.

She went still, eyes widened in surprised as suddenly she realized who had her. "_Wade_?" She whispered against his hand, which of course meant he couldn't understand what she'd said.

"_Shhhhh_." He whispered in her ear nonetheless, laying on his back on the floor with his arms wrapped around her, the blonde laying on her back on top of him, cradled between his thighs.

Chloe relaxed as best as she could, hearing Sean's screams as they slowly began to get further and further away.

A part of her was guilty as hell that she hadn't even tried to help him.

Another part of her thanked any deity listening that she hadn't had to.

Only once Sean's screams weren't heard anymore did Wade remove his hands from her mouth and body, granting her freedom.

Throwing herself off of him and to the side, Chloe knelt on the floor as she gazed up at the blue eyed, dark haired man. "How-?"

"I wrapped my body around you and it was able to destabilize you enough to go through…but I don't think I have enough juice to do that again." He muttered, gazing at the very faded tattoos on his arms. "They're fading a lot faster than normal."

"It might be the meteor rocks in the walls." Chloe replied softly, moving on her knees closer to Wade and hesitating only a second before reaching out and placing her hand on his arm, surveying the hard to see tattoos. "They could be somehow sucking the meteor ink out of your body."

"Great." He snorted, sitting with his arms resting on his knees. "So, you wanna let me in on exactly who that was and what he's doing driving fucking _meathooks_ into people?"

"Why do you automatically assume that I would know who that was?" Off of Wade's look she made a face. "Jacob Goodnight. Murderous psychopath. Supposed to be dead."

"Did you know he was here?" There was slight accusation there.

Her glare was vicious. "My _cousin_ is here."

He eyed her before nodding. "Sorry."

She sighed, not blaming him, not after California. "It's okay."

"Shit like this only happens in Smallville." Wade grumbled, very much annoyed at this moment. "I should have fucking moved to Star City. Even Gotham is looking better in comparison."

"California." Chloe mumbled, giving him a look.

"Yeah well," Wade frowned, shrugging. "Guess there's no where sacred anymore then."

"And no topic sacred either. You lied and told Scott and Derek that we slept together." She knew this wasn't the moment to be bringing this up, but it just came out.

Wade snorted in dark amusement. "You haven't even thanked me for saving your butt, and yet you have the balls to _scold_ me."

That was…true.

The blonde took in a deep sigh. "Thank you."

He raised an eyebrow and tapped his lips.

The teenager folded her arms over her chest. "I'm not kissing you."

"It's the least you owe me after putting me through that shit in California." Wade raised an eyebrow. "And I just saved your life…_again_."

"You keep wanting some sort of reward for doing the right thing. Dean's saved my life and he hasn't asked for a kiss in return." Chloe declared, although she felt a little tempted. "Heroes don't expect something in exchange for their good deeds."

"Yes, well, I'm a _villain_, not a hero." Wade leaned back on his elbows. "Haven't you figured that out yet?"

Her lips twitched reluctantly at that as she shook her head. "There's a murderer on a rampage…we _really_ need to find the others and get everyone out here safely."

Wade tapped his cheek.

"Are you seriously…?" Groaning, Chloe rolled her eyes before coming closer on her knees and leaning over to press a kiss to his cheek.

At the last second Wade turned and their lips touched as his arms went around her, securing her in position as he kissed her. Chloe found herself being pulled closer, nearly stradling him, as she opened her mouth to the kiss, reaching out to sink her hands into his short black hair. Flashes of California flashed behind her closed eyes but she ignored them, intent on the moment's reprieve from fear and pain as she just gave into temptation once more. She seemed to be doing that a lot since Hope, huh? There were five different set of lips that could attest to that.

Finally Wade pulled away and was somehow on his feet, pulling her up along with him, his gaze lowering to the scars visible on her chest.

Blushing and in a horribly embarrassed mood, Chloe lifted her camisole yet knew it wouldn't cover the scars…only now realizing she was very much in her underwear. "Do you know the way out?"

"Derek, Scott and I got separated and more than a little lost…if I hadn't heard screaming and peeked out I wouldn't have even seen you there…I have no idea where we are…and my juice is about to run out so there's _maybe _only one more phase in me before I risk getting caught in the walls." He shook his head. "This was supposed to be our big job. Damn meteor walls!"

"And murdering psychopath." Chloe reminded.

"Yeah…that too." Wade mumbled before beginning to walk down on direction.

Grateful she wasn't alone anymore, the blonde silently followed, hugging herself and wondering how Lois, Dean and Pete were.

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"Do you think he's still alive?" Lois whispered as they made their way silently down the dark corridor. "Sean…do you think he's dead?" She ran her fingers through her loose hair, trying to reign in hysteria and keep her voice as calm as she could in these circumstances. "Why was he in the house again? Why was there blood already on him? Where are the others?"

"I don't think they made it off of the property." Pete gulped, tightening his hold on the flashlight as he shone the light on every shadow, obviously very nervous. "I think this guy got to them and got the others." He took in a ragged breath. "I think we're the only ones left."

"He dragged Sean away with a _meathook_ imbedded in him." Lois' voice wavered in horror as she tightened her grip on the container of salt. "Is that how he took Chloe?"

"I doubt it." Dean was calm, composed, as he led the group, holding the EMF reader in front of him, none of the lights on. "The only blood at the scene was where her head was obviously bashed against the wall. If he'd put a meathook in her there would have been a lot more of it everywhere."

"The guy obviously is gentler on the girls." Pete mumbled as he hurried to catch up with them after having paused to stare at some dead rats. "I mean, he took Chloe and Jenna pretty stealthily, we still can't find any evidence of how he took Jenna. But Sean and Phelan? That was _brutal_ man. Phelan was especially an overkill."

"Phelan put a bullet through his head, it was obviously personal." Dean muttered, eyes narrowed.

"What I don't get is that if he's a ghost-shouldn't this be it?" Pete wanted to know from the back. "I mean, he got his revenge, shouldn't he now be at peace or something?"

"It's not always that black and white." The ghost/monster hunter replied in front. "Phelan being here could be just a coincidence."

"But what exactly is the ghost of Jacob Goodnight doing here?" Lois nearly snapped, barely holding onto her self-control, imagining Chloe screaming as she was dragged across the hard floor, a meathook deep within her shoulder. "Phelan is the _only_ connection we can find. It makes _no sense_ that this ghost is here!"

"Unless he was summoned by someone who holds his anchor." Dean's expression was as dark as the corridor as they took a left. "We have to consider the option that the ghost is working along with someone else. Someone human."

"One of _us_?" Lois squeaked, unable to believe that. "_No one_ in our group would be morally _capable_ of-."

"Beels could have used the ghost to distract Phelan and thus keep anyone from finding out about him and the guys stealing from the house." Dean offered up a plausible solution.

"Scott…" she made a face at the thought of the guy. "Wade's cocky enough, and Derek's smart enough to find out what needs to be done."

"Um, guys? What about Jenna?" Pete wanted to know curiously. "There's been no signs of struggle in her disappearance-and everyone has seen how stormy her relationship with Sean is. Maybe she decided she'd had enough and wanted to teach him some sort of lesson?"

The three fell into silence as they continued to walk.

"I'm locking Chloe in her room after this." Lois whispered.

Pete snorted. "I'd like to see you try."

She sent him a glare.

"_What_?" He shone his light on her. "You don't honestly think you've got any sort of control over her, do you? Chloe's always been unbreakable and a spit-fire, free and independent, it's why her dad stopped trying to be her master. She loves you, she trusts you, but she's not going to follow your rules. You're not her mother."

"Considering Aunt Moira's a psychotic _bitch_, I consider that a _good_ thing." Lois snapped.

"You don't get it!" Pete threw his hands up in the air. "You're smothering her!"

Lois drew back as if she'd been smacked.

"You're not doing her any good by how you're acting, you only make her remember how fucked up she is." His voice broke with emotion before he cleared it. "That's one of the reasons why she wanted to do this. Sure, she gets a story out of this trip, but she was planning on having Adam come along hoping that being locked up together with him would jumpstart something between you two. And then Ghost Hunter Dude here shows up and she spends the whole night at my place helping me paint telling me about how you guys had an obvious attraction and maybe instead she should try and get you with _him_ because she bet that you'd be attracted to him because he's basically "perfect"."

Dean gave a little choking sound in front.

Lois felt herself growing red in embarrassment.

"She's trying to get over it, but she sees how _you aren't_, and she won't be able to put it passed her until you start acting normal." Pete scratched the back of his head with his flashlight. "Why do you think I agreed to this slave-labor lock-up? She's trying to act normal, and I'm trying to _support_ her efforts by pretending I don't realize she's _far_ from okay."

"I'm just trying my best to help her."

Shame crossed Pete's features. "I know." He lowered his head. "I shouldn't have snapped at you like that, none of this is really your fault and I had no right to say it was. You've gone out of your way for her, and that's why she loves you and is so worried about you."

Lois gave a bitter laugh, telling herself not to cry. "Worried about me."

"Yeah, she _is_." Pete pressed.

"She kinda is." Dean cleared his throat, obviously uncomfortable with this feeling-full moment. "She made some comments to me last night…she just really wants you to be happy. She doesn't think you are."

Unable to handle this, Lois turned and leaned against the wall, covering her face with her hands as she slid to the ground. "I don't know what I'm doing." Her voice betrayed her fears and battles, her sadness. "I pretend I do, pretend everything's right, pretend I'm happy and confident…I should have realized she'd see through that." She pressed her hand harder against her face. "Out of the two of us I don't have the best poker face."

Someone sighed and knelt down next to her, placing his hand on her shoulder. "You're still a teenager Lois, you're doing great all things considering."

Lois pulled her hands from her face and stared into Pete's eyes, surprised to realize how old his eyes seemed right now. "Thanks."

Dean seemed all sorts of uncomfortable as he shifted his weight on his feet. "We should keep moving."

"Right." Pete nodded, holding his hand out to Lois silently.

She perceived the motion for what it was and nodded to him with a watery smile as she accepted it and his help to her feet.

Now wasn't the time to digest everything.

Right now they needed to find Chloe and then get the hell out of there.

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"Do you hear that?" Wade hissed, raising his hand for her to stop behind him, his eyes narrowed in front of him.

Chloe stopped, hugging herself against the chill of the dark, damp halls, tilting her head towards where he was listening. "No. What do you hear?"

"I'm not sure. Stay close." He moved forward, gazing around him seeming to be looking for something before cursing and raising his gaze, alert on whatever it was he was hearing.

And then Chloe heard it too. It was faint, almost inaudible, and yet…there it was again.

Wade paused at the turn of a corner, pressing hard against the wall, discreetly gazing around before he went tense. "You've got to be _fucking_ me!" He took off running. "The _hell_ man!"

Realizing that it couldn't be Goodnight on the other side, Chloe quickly took the corner before skidding to a halt, her eyes wide in shock. "Whoa."

She'd wished for it…and yet never had expected to actually see it happen.

"You've got to help me man!" Scott Bowman groaned, completely phased and stuck in the wall, only a bit of his face visible, enough for him to breathe. "My mojo's gone and I can't get out!"

The blonde leaned against the wall, wondering what it said about her that the part of her who'd hated him for leaving her alone was getting vicious glee from this.

"You should have known better than to continue phasing through the walls!" Wade snapped, pacing back and forth, running his fingers through his hair in utter agitation. "You should have felt the tats wearing off and be smart enough to stop!"

"I'm stuck in a fucking _wall_ dude!" Scott cried out in fury. "I don't need a fucking _sermon_!" His gaze slid to her, the fury deepening. "What are you sneering at bitch?"

"Leave her out of this." Wade growled.

"Jesus, stop being so pussy-whipped by that little cunt!" Scott snapped, gaze returning to his leader.

"You want me to leave you in this fucking wall?" Wade snarled, slamming his open palm on the wall right next to Scott's face.

The fury melted quickly into horror. "Dude! You _wouldn't_!"

"I don't know Scott," Wade glared down menacingly at the little amount of face visible. "I'm wondering if I shouldn't just leave you in there for being stupid enough to get yourself in this sort of shit."

"Wade…you can't just-!" Scott begged, finally reminded that he was the omega of his group.

Staring at the other man hard, Wade growled before turning to Chloe. "Find something to use against this wall. We're going to chip the idiot out piece by piece."

They were wasting a lot of valuable time doing this, but Wade had saved her, and what would it say about her if the criminal was more inclined to help someone else than she was? So, if only to prove something to herself, and to be able to sneer at Scott for ages to come should they escape here alive, Chloe began her search for something to use to get Scott Bowman out of the wall.

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**TBC**


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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There was a lot of stuff all around her, but none of them were useful when the task was removing a douchebag from a wall. He was lucky though, the tattoos weren't completely faded, only existed enough to keep the wall from completely reforming and killing him. But those tats weren't eternal, and they _would_ fade away to nothing. Things would be much better for Scott if he was outside of the wall when that happened unless he wanted to lose a limb...or his life.

She continued searching, if only to give her something to do.

Suddenly a nearly inhuman roar echoed throughout the halls, the sound furious and from higher above them on a different floor level.

The blonde froze, gazing up at the ceiling above her, the sounds of things breaking and crashing audible, the force of whatever was going on managing to shake the ceiling slightly.

"The _hell_?" Wade stopped trying to chip the wall away with a piece of piping he'd yanked out of the bathroom of one of the rooms.

"What?" Scott squeaked. "What is it?"

Chloe stood, hugging herself tightly as she did so. "I think he just realized I escaped."

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"The _hell_ was that?" Lois squeaked, holding tighter onto her flashlight, shining it all around her.

"It was _him_." Pete took in a deep breath, shining the light behind them, almost as if expecting Goodnight to be behind them despite the fact that the sound had come from above.

Dean was beginning to really get annoyed. His EMF detector remained dead, and that made him wonder if maybe this wasn't spirit activity. Maybe, somehow, Jacob Goodnight wasn't a ghost. But if that was so then what exactly was he? Had his father been right when he'd contemplated the fact that Jacob Goodnight was some sort of supernatural creature? If that was true…the salt they were lugging around wouldn't do any good, and they were as good as sitting ducks if he attacked them. Specific supernatural entities had specific ways they could be killed, and once again Dean felt impotent and useless. He hardly ever felt this way, but these girls seem to get him into situations that tested him and made him feel like he was failing horribly.

His father would be ashamed of him right now.

"Why is he making that noise all of a sudden?" Lois wanted to know a very good question, obviously getting more and more nervous. "He sounds pissed off!"

"Obviously something angered him, a lot." Pete made a face. "It's probably Chloe."

Lois sent the younger boy a glare.

He ignored her. "Means she's still alive…or she was until two seconds ago."

Dean turned towards the guy. "Enough, okay? The kid's _fine_. She might look frail, but that girl is tougher than all of us combined."

Lois seemed to take comfort in that, nodding her agreement.

Pete pursed his lips. "If she was drinking then she wouldn't have her wits sharp enough to think straight and might do something _stupid_."

Dean paused. So Pete knew about Chloe's little drinking problem.

"Drinking?" Lois made a face. "What are you talking about? Why would you think she'd be drinking?"

Pete looked away, obviously realizing he'd just betrayed Chloe's trust and feeling horrible about it.

Before Lois could storm over to the boy, as was obviously her intention, another roar echoed, this time closer.

Dean turned around to shine the light ahead of them, unable to determine what direction it'd come from. "We need to keep moving."

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"We need to keep moving." Chloe looked down both sides of the hallway, unable to determine what direction the second roar had come from. "It was closer. _He_ is closer."

"_Who_ is closer?" Scott's voice was tinged with fear. "You know who that is?"

"I told you right before you abandoned me up there you asshole." Chloe snapped at him, fear making her bitchier. "There's a psychopath running around murdering people."

"Oh fuck." The little bit of Scott's face that was visible paled. "Get me out of here!"

Wade continued to pound the piping into the wall, chipping it little by little, but Chloe knew that it wouldn't be enough. All he was doing was making too much noise. He was signaling a lunch bell to that raving lunatic, letting him know exactly where they were.

The petite blonde looked around her, feeling the fear growing inside of her all-consuming. Images of Jenna's eyes being gouged out of her face, the blood spurting up into the air like geysers…it filled her mind, causing her heart to accelerate and her breathing to grow more rapid. The walls seemed to be closing in on their every side, and it was all teh blonde could do to not have a full freak-out as she reminded herself of what Dr. Masters had told her. This was her fear tricking her mind. This was all her mind. She needed to calm down. Needed to think. Needed to see things as they were and not from her terror's perspective.

Taking in a deep breath, Chloe closed her eyes and counted backwards from five to one, breathing with each count, until she reached one and opened her eyes once more to find the walls back where they should be, and Wade making some progress on the wall, having found a section of it which was apparently weak. A sense of pride and accomplishment speared throughout her body at having had the power to overcome that panic attack in the making, and if she made it out of this alive she was going to have to share the victory with Dr. Masters.

A fly flew passed her face.

Chloe batted at it, making a face, lowering her gaze to the ground and returning to her search.

Another fly buzzed around her, getting caught in her hair.

Giving a little growl she messed up her hair, finally freeing the creature, which continued to buzz over her head.

The blonde was about to grab something to whack at it when she froze, horror and understanding beginning to dawn on her as she turned to Wade. "We have to go. _Now_."

"Hold on." He wasn't even looking at her, gripping a piece of the wall, foot against it as he pulled, yanking out bits of stone slowly, revealing a little more of the trapped Scott.

"No, we need to go _now_." She insisted, taking a step back, biting back a cry when another fly appeared, beginning to circle around Wade. "He's coming. He's almost here."

"I'm not just leaving him here!" Wade threw away the latest bit of wall he'd managed to pull out, which freed Scott's left arm all the way to his shoulder. "He's an asshole but he's my _friend_."

Scott was using his free hand to claw at the wall around his chest while Wade picked up his pipe and went to the man's side and began ramming it into the wall, trying to find another weak spot.

Another fly appeared.

Another.

Three landed on Scott's face.

Chloe's eyes widened as she began to back up, eyes wide and on the direction in which the flies seemed to be coming from.

Wade's next hit found another weak patch and went through, creating another hole he was able to enlarge enough to stick his hands through and use to begin tearing out bits of the wall.

Suddenly the darkness shifted at the end of the hallway behind the men, a large, looming, horrifyingly familiar figure standing there, hulking, hands at his side.

"_Wade_." Chloe's voice was a broken whisper, her eyes wide.

The thief seemed to hear her, looking up quickly before turning and following her gaze.

"Don't leave me man!" Scott begged, frantically clawing at the wall around him. "Don't leave me!"

Wade took in deep breaths, rapid, before tightening his grip on the pipe. "Chloe, _run_."

"_Wade_." She couldn't stop the cry in her voice.

"_Run_!" He yelled at her, not taking his eyes off of the large man.

The teenager took one step backwards, Goodnight mimicking it with a step forwards. She took another backwards, and once again he followed suit.

The huge man feigned a lunge forwards and Chloe lost her nerve, turning on her heels and beginning to race away as fast as she could, the sound of heavy footsteps behind her causing adrenaline to race within and give her an extra jolt of speed.

"Go to hell you asshole!" Wade yelled before the sound of a scuffle could be heard.

Chloe pressed on despite her desire to look behind, instead forcing herself faster away from the scene. Her heart raced and seemed about to beat out of her chest, the sound of her blood rushing in her ears soon overpowering the other sounds around her. Maybe that was good.

And then she ran into a dead end.

Her eyes widened as she turned the corner and nearly ran into the wall there. She must have missed a stairs or something! There had to be another way out of here!

Maybe one of the rooms?

But being in the rooms was like being stuck in the cage again, and she'd be trapped should Goodnight come for her.

No.

She needed to find another way out.

There was always another way out.

This place was filled with secret passages.

There had to be another one close by!

Giving a little cry of despair, Chloe began knocking on the walls, fingers tracing every groove for a trap door. She kicked away any sort of furniture or decoration leaning against the walls, trying to find any sort of lever, or a hole behind, yet each and every one were just decorations and of no purpose to her. A cry rolled in her throat as Scott's scream echoed throughout the corridor, along with the sound of heavy footsteps heavily pounding towards her.

No no no no no no!

Yanking a portrait off of the wall, she froze when she saw a clear outline of a hatch-door above her. Surging forwards she ran her fingers along the line before managing to open it, finding what appeared to be a dumbwaiter of some sort. Things like this were used to carry dishes or clothes from one level of the house to another and mightn't be able to carry her weight, and yet as the loud thudding grew closer she was willing to risk it. It took her two times to manage to climb up enough to reach into the dumbwaiter and slowly slide her body inside. It was shaky once she was in, but the blonde didn't have enough time to fear the steadiness of the machine as Goodnight appeared around the corner, his face splattered with blood.

"No!" She reached outside and slammed down on the button that controlled the dumbwaiter, barely managing to pull her hand inside before the dumbwaiter started a mind-stopping free fall.

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Dean stopped immediately, frowning, narrowing his eyes at the sound. It was faint yet most definitely there.

"What's that?" Lois asked softly, having heard it as well.

"I don't know." He frowned, heading towards it, passing Pete the EMF detector. "But I'm going to check it out. Make a circle around you two and don't leave it no matter what."

"But-." Lois began, holding onto the container of salt tightly in her hands.

"_Do it_." He ordered, surprising himself at how much he sounded like his father right then.

Lois frowned, narrowing her eyes, before beginning to do what she'd been told, her movement tense.

Sighing at how things between them seemed to be getting tenser and tenser, and not in the good way, Dean shook his head as he went forwards towards the sound. He pushed the thoughts of Lois out of his head and continued following that elusive sound, trying to figure out what it was. He turned a couple of bends, stopping every couple of seconds to make sure he was going in the right direction, before pausing in front of a locked door. The sound, it was coming from the other side of the room.

There was a loud pounding. "_Help me_!"

Hazel eyes widened. "_Chloe_?" Instincts kicked in as Dean kicked the door in, sweeping inside as it swung open, looking around him in confusion as he was met with an empty room. "Chloe?"

There was a pause, and then the pounding became desperate. "Dean! DEAN!"

Dean hurried to the portrait and tore it off of the wall to reveal an opening of some kind behind it. "Chloe?"

"_Dean_." She sounded like she was crying. "Get me out! Please! Hurry!"

Cursing as he struggled to find the latch to open the door, Dean finally found it and yanked the door open to reveal a dumbwaiter, and a tear stained, crouched down Chloe Sullivan.

Suddenly the dumbwaiter shook, the sound of electrical whirring the only warning as it began to rise once more.

Terror filled those green eyes as Chloe looked upwards. "No!"

Dean didn't think about the risk to himself. He reached in quickly and wrapped his arms around her, somehow managing to slide her out before the dumbwaiter could take her away…and cut him in half.

Chloe collided into him with the momentum, the both of them tumbling hard to the ground, her arms around him as she cried, holding onto him as if to life itself as she shook violently.

Dean was awkward, not used to this and not sure how to react.

But the girl seemed far from releasing him, and his arms found their way around her awkwardly giving her back some pats, Sammy's voice in his head mocking him for his emotional retardedness.

"_Wade_…" she whimpered.

Dean felt himself tense, his grip on her tightening as white fury entered him. "Did he hurt you? Is he involved in this?"

"What?" She pulled away from him in confusion, somehow ending up straddling his hips as she wiped at her eyes. "_No_. He saved my life. _Twice_." She turned her neck towards the dumbwaiter shaft, lips trembling. "He might be dead." She turned her glistening greens on him, pale and obviously terrified. "Jacob Goodnight's alive."

"_Alive_?" Dean frowned, eyes narrowed as he stared up at her. "He's definitely not a ghost?"

"Not a ghost." She shook her head, thinking about that man…that _thing_. "I don't know how he's still alive after getting shot in the head and buried…but he _is_." She closed her eyes tightly. "He killed Jenna…took her eyes out right in front of me." She closed her eyes tightly. "He killed Mr. Beels, there was a knife protruding from the back of his head, and the last I saw of Sean Goodnight was dragging him off to his lair. Sean was screaming and begging for mercy."

Oh god.

This girl…_why _did shit like this have to keep happening to her? Was the universe having fun fucking her up more and more?

Suddenly Dean realized something, taking in her completely, his eyes widening. "Why the hell are you half naked?"

For a moment she seemed confused and then she gaze down at herself and gave a little cry as she threw herself off of him, stumbling to her feet, lifting her tight camisole higher up on her chest, obviously trying to hide the scar over her heart yet unable to since the moment she let go of the material it slid back down into place.

The sound of the dumbwaiter returning below drew their attention as it came to a stop at their level once more, something in there now that wasn't large enough to be Goodnight, yet obviously a message from him.

Chloe didn't hesitate, hurrying towards it before reaching in before Dean could stand and tell her not.

The blonde stopped, turning around and vomiting what seemed more like water than actual food. Then again, considering the vomit in the bag at the scene of her abduction, she probably didn't have anything in her system anymore.

Dean rose to his feet, going towards the dumbwaiter, keeping his composure as he pulled the shirt completely off of the thing underneath, not needing to do that to know that a severed head was beneath.

The identity was a surprise though.

It didn't belong to Wade as he'd believed.

Instead it belonged to Scott Bowman.

"That's Wade's shirt." Chloe whispered, running the back of her hand over her mouth as she reached for it, holding it in her hands as she stared at it, realization dawning on her. "_He's still alive_."

"You don't know that." Dean turned towards her.

"Why else do this? He wants me back." Chloe's breathing was growing more erratic. "He's showing me the shirt, the unharmed shirt. He wants me to go back to the cage room."

"_Cage room_?" Dean hissed, only then noticing the cuts and dried up blood on her arms and hands. "_Jesus_!"

"If I don't go back he's going to kill Wade." Chloe seemed to be talking to herself, closing her eyes as she shivered. "Oh god. He's going to kill Wade."

"He's probably already killed him." Dean pulled off his jacket and handed it to her to cover herself with. Not only must she be cold with the draftiness of these halls, but no way in hell was he going to have her running around like that.

The blonde stared at the jacket in silence for a second, almost as if not understanding why she held it, before her gaze rose to his. "Thank you." In an instance she'd slipped into it, the thing comically large on her. "We need to go back. We need to save Wade."

"We need a plan." Dean corrected. "Goodnight's not a ghost-and he has all of my weapons."

"I don't care." Chloe angered him by snapping. "Wade wasted what could have been his last phase to save _me_. I am _not_ going to abandon him again! I-."

"You're not going anywhere." Dean ordered.

Her green eyes were twin flames as she glared up at him. "If you're not going to help me then I'll go by myself."

"Lois and Pete both risked their necks to come looking for you and you're just going to throw it all in their faces by going back into the lion's den like some stupid sacrificial lamb?" Dean snapped at her, annoyed as hell.

She flinched. "I have to do this."

"What are you, some super hero with a savior complex?" He growled, unable to hold onto his frustration. "The little girl gonna save the big muscled bad boy? With what?" He was in her personal space and he was bullying her, he was being too much like his father now, it slightly worried him and yet he didn't show it as he scowled at her. "You're a _kid_. You're not thinking clearly. And you're _not_ going into what is obviously a trap!"

"You're not my boss." She positively _growled_ at him.

It shocked him stiff, unable to equate this with the terrified girl she'd been seconds ago, or the timid girl he'd met in Hope.

"Just take Lois and Pete and get them out of here. Get help." She had the gall to order him about as she turned to head back towards the dumbwaiter.

Dean grabbed her arm and swung her around violently to face him. "The hell I am."

"Let go of me!" She struggled in his grasp, proving how utterly weak she was, how vulnerable. She had the spirit, had the fire, but didn't have the knowledge or power to do anything else but struggle.

"_Enough_!" Dean snarled, yanking her to him and wrapping his arm around her, trying to prove to her how little a chance she had with Goodnight if she couldn't even win against _him_. "Calm down and stop being so damned stubborn!"

"Get off!" Chloe struggled, trying to knee him.

Dean anticipated the move and twirled her around, pinning her face-first into the wall, though making sure that it wasn't enough force to hurt her, only keep her prisoner. She struggled viciously and he was forced to keep her pinned there by pressing his body into hers. "Stop trying to be a hero, kid. You can't save him."

"I saved _you _didn't I?!" She snarled before suddenly going very still, very tense.

"_What_?" Dean frowned, confused. "What are you talking about?"

She was silent, almost afraid.

Something dark and surprisingly enough _terrified_ filled his stomach, and Dean pulled away only enough so he could turn her around so as to see her face. It was pale, her eyes wide. "When did you save me?"

She continued to look away, gulping.

"_Chloe_." His voice was sharp.

Her green orbs finally turned on him. "In Hope."

He went still. "How did you save me?"

She stared into his eyes before looking away, almost as if unable to look at him. "When that man came into the cellar when we were down there, his first plan was to kill you. I…distracted him."

Dean let go of Chloe as if burnt, pulling away, remembering the near rape which had occurred while he was unconscious.

That'd been his fault.

She'd been trying to protect _him_.

He felt sick to his stomach.

"_Dean_." She whispered, her voice breaking. "Wade saved my life. _Twice_. I _have_ to do this."

Dean stared down into her scared yet determined face knowing she'd hate him for taking her out of here, for leaving Wade to die if he was by some miracle still alive, and yet the hunter realized that he was very much willing to carry that hatred on his shoulders.

Suddenly a yell for help could be heard, causing them both to look towards the door.

Chloe's eyes widened. "_Trevor_."

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**TBC**


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Trevor.

Looking up at the sound of the boy's cry for help Lois remembered Dean's orders for her to stay still no matter what, but she couldn't. She just couldn't. The brunette turned to Pete. "Stay here."

"Dean told us to-." He began.

"Screw what Dean told us to do!" Lois snapped, her frustration with everything springing forth. "I'm not letting that monster take Trevor like he did Sean, Jenna, and Chloe!" With that she broke out of the circle, holding the flashlight in one hand and the container of salt in another.

Pete cursed before taking off after her.

"I told you to stay there!" Lois yelled behind her.

"Pot, Kettle!" He yelled back, catching up with her.

Shaking her head in dark amusement, Lois pushed on further despite the fact that Trevor's cries had faded into nothing. She pressed forwards, not caring that she'd gone in the opposite direction that Dean had to follow the sound he'd heard, even when her mind screamed about going in opposite directions not being the smartest thing. She felt like she was losing control, like maybe she'd never had the control no matter how much she'd managed to delude herself into thinking otherwise, and she was desperate to get some back. The brunette ran with all her might, only stopping once she reached a fork in the corridor, two hallways branching off in different directions. She looked left and right, adrenaline pumping in her veins, and it was only a whisper of a sound that led her down towards the left, Pete hot on her heels.

They continued running passed double-sided mirrors, not bothering to look within, and Lois missed it, she would have gone right passed it if it hadn't been for Pete.

"Hey! Slow down!" He called from behind her.

Stumbling to a stop, Lois backed up towards where Pete was against one of the double-sided glasses, staring into the darkened room.

The first thing she noticed was the wardrobe blocking the door.

The second thing she noticed was Trevor sitting against it in the dark, eyes closed, blood splattered on his face, breathing in and out deeply as he quite visibly tried to calm himself down and keep from freaking out.

To be honest, he was being much smarter about the whole situation than Sean had.

"There has to be a way into that room." Pete pressed his hand against the mirror, eyes narrowed. "Why have a window into it if there isn't a way inside to whoever you're watching?"

"Creepy…but true." Lois made a face as she stared in at the boy, who raised his hands to cover his face. "We can't leave him there alone. Not after what happened to Sean."

"Something bad went down." Pete pointed out the obvious. "Whose blood is that? Are Miss Margaret and Beels still alive, or are they dead somewhere?" He ran a hand over his shortly cropped hair. "Someone has to be dead for them to have had blood on them."

Lois slammed her fist sideways into the mirror, not surprised that Trevor didn't react to the sound. "We're all trapped in a maze like rats."

"Makes you wonder why this place was constructed the way it was." Pete mumbled. "My dad doesn't like Mr. Luthor, knew him before this place burnt down, called him some real colorful names." He folded his arms over his chest and leaned with his shoulder into the window, staring within at Trevor. "According to dad, Mrs. Luthor wasn't that bad, but Mr. Luthor was a real character. He bought up a lot of Smallville, forced some of the people to sell him their land, and he lived a life of decadence here. Dad says he himself was never invited, but he'd heard so many stories about the place that he couldn't look at the people who attended them in the same light. He and Clark's dad had a falling out during that time."

"Mr. Kent used to go to Luthor's parties?" Lois' eyes were wide in shock at that one.

"I don't know about that part, but dad said that Mr. Luthor, and Mrs. and Mr. Kent were friends somehow, and dad couldn't be friends with them while they were friends with him."

"Why did your father not like Mr. Luthor so much?"

"Because we were one of the people he forced to sell their family lands." Pete replied with a shrug. "He's still somewhat sore about it till this very day…almost didn't let me come here."

"Bet you're wishing he hadn't." Lois snorted, leaning her back against the wall on the side of the mirror, tapping her head against it.

"Yeah, well…" Pete suddenly went still. "Lois…do that again."

"Huh?" She looked up in confusion.

Pete wasn't looking at her, instead gazing inside of the room. "Knock on the stone, not the mirror."

Confused as to why he wanted this, Lois turned around and pounded her fist on the stone.

"_Hello_?" Trevor's voice from inside could be heard.

Lois' eyes widened as she went to the mirror to see that Trevor now stood and was slowly making his way towards them, his voice low in a wary whisper. "How can he hear that but not the mirror?"

Pete kicked the stone wall next to him.

Nothing.

Trevor sighed and turned his back on them.

Lois reached out and pounded another stone block…nothing…and then she pounded on the block that'd been behind her head.

Trevor turned on his heel immediately. "Is someone there?"

"It's this stone block in particular." She whispered, going towards the block and examining it with her flashlight. "Something's special about this block."

Pete joined her side immediately, shining his light on it as well, frowning slightly. "This stone has a slightly different color than the others."

"And texture." Lois agreed with a frown, running her palm over it before her eyes widened. "Meteor rock. It's _meteor_ rock." She turned towards Pete. "Chloe said that this place was totaled during the meteor shower and that it was supposedly rebuilt with some of the meteors that'd destroyed it the first time!"

"How does this help us?" Pete wanted to know.

"I don't know." She admitted, her excitement dimming slightly. "But the fact that he can hear it when I pound on it has to mean _something_."

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"I told them not to leave the damned circle!" Dean snapped, running his hands over his hair as he gazed at the empty salt circle angrily.

"There's no blood, and no signs of a struggle, so that's good." Chloe tried to be optimistic despite the way her stomach rolled in nausea. "Can you tell in what direction they went?"

"LOIS!" Dean cupped his hands to his mouth, yelling down the hallway. "PETE!"

Chloe reacted on instinct, grabbing him by his shirt and slamming him against the wall, stepping up on her tiptoes and placing her hand hard against his mouth. "Don't. _Yell_."

In the silence they heard something, almost musical.

Dean narrowed his eyes and slowly removed her hand from his lips as he tilted his eyes, listening. "I heard that sound before but I couldn't make it out."

Chloe pulled away from him, eyes narrowed as well as she took a couple of steps towards the sound. "It sounds like…music…almost."

Dean's eyes widened. "A ringtone." He turned to her. "It's a _ringtone_."

"A _phone_." Chloe breathed the word out like a prayer. "Lois and Pete must have heard it too and gone after it!"

"There's a chance." Dean nodded. "We need to find that phone before it stops ringing."

Chloe was already ahead of him, racing into the darkness, unknowingly in the opposite direction her cousin and friend had taken.

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"Get your men to the Luthor Castle, immediately."

Sheriff Ethan Miller gazed up at the man who strode into his office, for a moment not recognizing him, and then he did, standing immediately at attention. "Sir?"

"You need to get every deputy you've got and head to the Luthor Castle, something is going on there. Something unplanned." Azazel snarled, his eyes flashing gold in his frustration. "My kind can't get in due to the damned anti-demon wards all over the place except for the mistress' room, otherwise I wouldn't have just left this for you and yours."

It irked the Sheriff of Smallville a bit to know that he and his men were being questioned for their competence, but he pushed that back and eyed the demon. He didn't really have the right to speak back, not after everything Azazel had done for them.

"Is the girl in danger?" He was already reaching for his gun and ammo. "The Luthor Castle was supposed to be a harmless excursion...just a way to keep her occupied and unsuspecting."

"I believe someone is working against us, knows somehow about her presence there and is using this opportunity away from me to test her." Azazel snarled, obviously agitated, a state the other man only ever saw him in if the girl was involved. "Blood has been shed and more death is occurring." His eyes narrowed. "From the mistress' room I watched Goodnight dragging Phelan's and Beels' bodies away."

"Goodnight?" Sheriff Miller frowned in confusion before his eyes widened. "We put that dog _down_."

"Or we _thought_ we did." Azazel's voice was pure steel. "Someone helped him feign his own death, has been hiding him all this while, and now my asset is locked up in a place where I can do nothing but _watch_."

Reaching for the intercom, Sheriff Miller pressed the button while reaching for a remote and activating the hidden screen on which every part of the Smallville Sheriff's Department could be seen, able to see each and every deputy. "Men, we have a Code Gold. I repeat. We have a Code Gold."

The men all looked up at the cameras they knew were there, eyes widening and appearing like laser beams, betraying them for what they truly were. In a second they'd put down everything they'd been in the middle of doing and hurried to suit up.

It was only thanks to Azazel that they'd been given lives, identities...a purpose.

And the purpose had always been very clear.

"Don't worry sir," Sheriff Ethan Miller, or the creature who'd stolen both his form and life, turned to the demon. "We'll put down the threat, make sure he's really dead this time, but before that we'll make him tell us who he's working with."

Grabbing his jacket, Sheriff Miller stormed out of the office, knowing that this girl was the only reason why he and his men had been given the lives they now lived, and were able to integrate themselves into a community and have families the way they did. They were protected from hunters, all upstanding members of the town, and considering they made up the Sheriff Department they had _power_.

Should a hunter come through Smallville they'd know and be able to fend for themselves and their kind.

All of this...this nirvana was theirs as long as they followed Azazel's orders and complied with his one Golden Rule.

That was why there was no way in _hell_ that Sheriff Miller, or any of his men, would allow anything to happen to the girl...and would put down any threat to her with extreme prejudice.

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The ringing had stopped and they were lost.

Apparently Lois and Pete had the blueprints so Chloe and Dean didn't even have that to rely on, not that it was exactly very reliable to begin with but at least it'd been _something._

"What do we do?" Chloe asked, leaning against the wall, warm in Dean's jacket. "Hope whoever called was a needy girlfriend and that she'll try again?"

Dean leaned against the opposite wall, eyes narrowed, obviously deep in thought. "What do you know about Jacob Goodnight that you haven't told me?"

She paused, confused by this question. "Excuse me?"

"What connection do you have to all of this that you haven't told me about?" His voice was low.

"Why would I have a connection at all?" What in the world was he going on about?

"Maybe because according to you he's killed Beels and Jenna, and I know he killed Phelan and Scott, and Sean and Wade are probably dead as well." Those light hazel eyes were on her. "Everyone who he's been in contact with have been hurt. Except for you. Why?"

"How I am supposed to know?" She didn't understand the attack, or maybe it was because she had a secret to hide that she felt more defensive. "I was in a _cage_, Dean. He left me in there locked up! Obviously he thought I was secure so he could go around, kill the others, and I'd still always be there for him to get around to later!"

Dean just watched her, half covered in shadows.

The blonde sighed and turned her head. "It could be my scars."

"Your scars?" He raised an eyebrow.

A flash of rebellion streaked through her as she yanked open his jacket and pulled down her camisole despite the fact that the scars were already visible as they were. "It's a _cross_, Dean. If you know enough to know it's Jacob Goodnight we're dealing with, you'll remember his fascination with religious symbols. The only girl he didn't kill had crosses and Jesus and other religious paraphernalia tattooed on her body. Maybe that was why I was in the cage and not handcuffed outside getting my eyes gouged out!" She pushed away from the wall, her anger and frustration and fear and guilt forming something ugly as she stormed towards him angrily. "But you know what? I don't care what the _fuck_ reason why! Because I'm here and Jenna's not and even if it makes me a bitch I'm _happy_ that I'm alive and not her!"

Dean never reacted to her fury, her aggressiveness.

"None of this is my fault!" She yelled at him.

"I never said it was." He just continued to stare at her.

"Stop it!" She couldn't take his stare, she just couldn't. "Do you really think that I would have brought Pete and Lois or even _you_ here if I'd known there was a raving psychopath hiding in the recesses of this filthy place? I didn't know! It's not my fault!"

He didn't comment.

It was killing her.

This silence was worse than any sort of accusation.

"You know what? Screw. You. I don't need this." She knew she was being unreasonable, knew that her fear and guilt were making her be a huge bitch, knew that Dean's questions were all reasonable and smart, but she just couldn't take this. She couldn't. If Lois, Pete and Dean died Chloe would be the one who was responsible, and she just couldn't handle that thought. It was driving her insane.

The blonde didn't know where she was going, but she just started storming in that direction in blind fury.

It was stupid.

So stupid!

But she couldn't stop herself, storming as far away from Dean as she could, knowing without a doubt that he was silently keeping up with her.

It was infuriating.

She ignored his presence for a good couple of minutes, wondering why he wasn't reminding her of how lost she was getting them. Why wasn't he forcing the issue? Why wasn't he telling her what to do? Blaming her? Why wasn't he _speaking_?

Why was he only _following?_

Finally, Chloe stopped storming and leaned against the wall, slipping to the ground, feet out and hurting her, throbbing. She wouldn't look in Dean's direction, staring at her feet instead, wondering how much longer she'd be able to be on them. They were swollen, cut, and if she didn't get them tended to soon those cuts would soon get infected...which was the last thing she needed right now.

"Got it all off your chest yet?" Dean asked coolly, leaning against the same wall, arms folded over his chest.

Her head hung lower in shame.

Dean sighed, leaning the back of his head hard against the wall, tilting it backwards more so he could look up at the ceiling. "How are your feet?"

She closed her eyes tightly, ignoring the pain. "Fine."

"They don't look fine."

He was looking up at the ceiling, how would he know how her feet looked?

Biting back that smart aleck remark, Chloe took in a deep breath, sending him a raised eyebrow as she glanced in his direction. "They're not going to fall off, that's what's important now."

"Why would you leave your room without shoes on?" He seemed to be asking the ceiling.

Her annoyance returned somewhat. "I didn't leave without shoes on. I was wearing slippers, but they must have fallen off after my head was bashed in and I was thrown over that guy's shoulder like a sack of potatoes."

Dean didn't comment for a moment before giving a little groan and sliding down the wall, apparently quite annoyed since with a less than gentle movement he cupped the back of her neck and pushed her down forwards, obviously examining the back of her head. He used his fingers to examine the wound.

It stung and she hissed, slapping at his hands.

He slapped hers away, continuing his examining. "It's not going to need stitches...and has already stopped bleeding. You should be fine."

"I knew that before you poked at my injury." She was being a brat again. "And I didn't have a splitting headache back then either."

Instead of getting annoyed with her as she'd expected, since she'd deserve it, Dean's lips curved in amusement as he shook his head. "You're a real pain, you know that?"

"Who's poking whose injury?" She countered, turning slightly to glare at him.

Dean snorted. "You're more of a girl than Sammy."

That brought a reluctant twitch to her lips as she chuckled, shaking her head. "I know I don't have Lois' breasts, but you _must_ have realized by now that I'm a girl."

The hunter shook his head, chuckling with dark amusement.

Chloe leaned harder against the wall, letting out a deep breath as she took a page out of his book and gazed up at the ceiling, careful with her wound. "I'm sorry I got you into this."

His gaze joined hers above. "This isn't your fault."

Emotion lodged deep in her throat and Chloe fought the urge to cry as she hugged her knees to her chest, ignoring the throbbing in her feet as they pressed against the ground.

Dean continued to gaze above them.

A sniffle escaped her lips, and she leaned against him, resting her head against his shoulder.

He was obviously very uncomfortable with this touchy-feely moment, tensing up, refusing to look away from the ceiling.

The blonde hissed in pain, reorganizing herself so that she was off her feet once more, staring at the dirt and cuts, dried blood as she wriggled her toes.

"We need to keep going." Dean finally spoke, his voice tinged with awkwardness. "We need to find the others." With a fluid movement he was on his feet, and then a sigh escaped his lips as he turned to her and reached down his hand.

She accepted the help to her feet, flinching at the pain, before noticing Dean's odd posture and tilting her head to the side. "Is your back hurting you?"

He rolled his eyes at her as if she was some sort of idiot. "Just jump on. You're going to slow us down and we'll need those feet rested if we come across Goodnight. I'll need you to do your own running then."

Her pride flared, horrified and mortified, but the pain in her feet was stronger, and she nodded softly before cleared her throat and jumping onto his back piggy-back style, wrapping her arms around his neck as he got a better grip on her thighs and straightened.

"Thanks." She whispered softly.

He didn't answer, just started walking.

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A fly landed on her nose.

Lois batted at it with a cry of disgust before she froze, reaching out to place a hand on Pete's arm, bringing the other to her mouth to motion for silence. Pete understood, and together they remained silent, listening intently as a couple more flies appeared.

The sound of a chain dragging on the ground could be faintly heard approaching.

Dark brown eyes met dark hazel before Lois and Pete took off in the opposite direction as fast and silently as they could.

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**TBC**


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Lois pushed herself harder than she ever had, fear racing up her throat as she ran with all her might. Pete was by her side, easily keeping up, and yet while they were making good time their rapid footsteps weren't half as silent as they wished they were.

The sound of heavy footsteps behind them proved that they were being followed, although not close enough for them to see Goodnight as yet.

Sending another desperate look behind her shoulder, Lois' foot slammed into something and with a cry she went down, scraping the whole side of her body on the rough floor. Pain jolted up her body, her ankle killing her. She couldn't have a twisted ankle! Not now! Dammit!

Pete reached down and hauled her up with surprising strength, wrapping her arm around his shoulder and his around her waist as they made a slower pace this time. She was slowing him down, and the footsteps were getting louder.

Closer.

Sending another look over her shoulder, Lois tried to suppress her cry as Jacob Goodnight finally appeared in her vision. His long, muscular legs took him faster than theirs were, and he didn't even seem to feel the weight of the chain and meathook he yanked behind him.

"Hurry!" Lois screamed, knowing that it made no sense to remain silent anymore. "He's right behind us!"

Pete glanced behind him and cursed, pressing on faster, but still he was half dragging her and the distance was lessening between them.

Goodnight tightened up his chain, pulling it up so that it wasn't dragging on the ground, beginning to swing it.

Realizing what he was going to do, Lois only managed to push Pete out of the way and hit the wall as the meat hook pierced the air between them.

Lois staggered to the ground, crying out in pain, before reaching for the container of salt and beginning to spread it on the ground...yet Goodnight stepped over the line and grabbed her, lifting her easily and throwing her into the wall with enough force to make her see double.

"Leave her alone!" Pete yelled, throwing Dean's EMF detector at the monster of a man, causing his attention to turn towards him. "Oh crap."

Lois tried to push to her feet, tried to clear her vision, tried to help.

All she could do was struggle to righten herself as Goodnight grabbed Pete by his head and begin to squeeze with all his might.

Pete screamed, scratching at the hands that held him up in the air.

Crawling towards them, Lois lifted Goodnight's dirty pants leg and bit down on the tendons on the back of his foot.

Yowling in pain, Goodnight threw Pete away, a horrible cracking sound resounding through the hallways as he hit the wall at an awkward angle and slid to the ground motionless.

The monster turned towards Lois and kicked her in the face.

Blackness consumed.

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"How do you do what you do?" Chloe's voice was soft against his ear.

Dean made a face as he shifted her weight on his back, tightening his grip higher up her thighs as he continued forwards. "I live one day at a time, I suppose." He shrugged, never having really asked himself that. "It's all I know."

"Didn't you ever have nightmares about all the evils you've encountered?" She asked.

He got what she was getting at now, though that didn't make him any less awkward or uncomfortable. This was getting close to the whole "feelings" talk, and that was something he just wasn't good at. "When I was younger."

"Not anymore?"

Hell, he had nightmares all the time.

"Of course not."

"How did you get over them?"

"I outgrew them." He felt like such a fraud right then and there. "Anyway, no matter _what_ it is you're up against, there's a way to kill them. I guess, knowing that everything can die, makes them less scary in the end."

She didn't respond to that, though she rested her chin on the curve of his shoulder with a sigh.

He encouraged the silence by reveling in it, his thoughts training on Lois and Pete, and how they had yet to come upon them. It could mean those two were making good time...or it could mean that they were going in the complete opposite direction. That worried the hell out of him, especially now that he knew that Goodnight was alive and that the salt would do those two no good.

He knew that Chloe was blaming herself for everything, that that was why she'd reacted the way she had earlier, but to be truthful Dean felt more to blame. He was the one who was supposed to be the great hunter. He had the experience...he had the weapons! He was the one who was supposed to be taking care of them!

And yet, once again, he was running around like a headless chicken with no idea what he was dealing with or how to deal with it.

Had Goodnight just faked his own death...or was there some sort of supernatural reason as to why he was there? What if he really was a creature of some kind? It meant that there was probably a highly specific way in which he could be killed.

"What is it?" She whispered, breath against his ear. "You tensed up. What's wrong?"

"Nothing." It annoyed him that she'd noticed.

There was a pause, and then: "What is it?"

He realized that she wouldn't let up, and so he let out a growl of agitation. "I couldn't help but think that I might be a bad luck token for you two."

There was a little choking sound. "What?"

"Well, things seem to go to hell the moment I get together with you girls." He shrugged, not wanting her to realize how much this bothered him. "I wonder...maybe I bring bad luck."

There was silence, almost as if she was considering it, before the girl surprised him by chuckling softly. "I think you're more of a good luck charm if you ask me."

He snorted.

"I'm serious!" She slapped the back of his shoulder. "Things happen to me whether I'm with you or not...at least when you're around I feel safer."

He nearly tripped at that, the awkwardness seeping further into his bones as he shook his head visibly at that. "I get it, your mother's shit and all that-but Hope and now this? I seem to herald the entrance of psychos in your lives."

There was another pause, and then she sighed, leaning harder against his back, tightening her grip around his neck. "Were you anywhere around California a couple of months back?"

"Huh?" He almost stopped walking in his confusion.

"Since Hope, have you gone to California?"

It was an odd question, and yet asked very seriously, so he treated it with the seriousness it deserved. He thought back to all of the hunts he'd had since Hope, both with and without his father, and finally came to the conclusion that no, he had been nowhere near California since the Hope Incident.

"No."

"See?" She whispered, her voice tickling his ear. "Psychos still hound me even when you're nowhere around."

This time he did stop, eyes narrowing as he realized what she was saying. "What happened?"

She went silent.

He felt sick at his stomach, remembering Lois' comment in his room earlier about believing Chloe had lost her virginity while on her secret little trip. "What. Happened?"

The blonde cleared her throat. "The usual, I guess. He decided that nothing would make his existence worthwhile like quality time up my skirt." She cleared her throat once more, voice going somewhat squeaky though she obviously was trying for cheeky nonchalance. "Really though, you and Adam are probably the only guys I've met since I got these scars that don't seem to realize I'm a girl and want to sleep with me whether I want to sleep with you or not." Her laughter was forced, obviously trying for a joking tone. "I don't know whether to feel relieved or insulted."

Oh god, he was going to be sick.

She kept pretending that she hadn't said anything important, trying for amusement. "It has to be these scars, because before I got them no one noticed me, I mean, I've only had my first kiss _since_ _Hope_. Apparently girls aren't the only ones who like scars, huh?"

Dean couldn't just stand there anymore, his mind churning on her revelation, sickened to the core. He felt physically sick, that protectiveness he usually only had for Sammy rearing its ugly head and causing him to tighten his hold on her thighs as he continued on. If he didn't concentrate on taking every step he'd do something stupid, and he refused to do so.

No wonder this girl was so messed up!

Jesus!

He'd gone through shit in his own life, but he didn't know how he would have handled half the shit this girl had gone through. Then again, his father would have probably forced him to just push it all to the back of his mind and never think of it again, to just continue on and be a man about it.

"How can your father leave you and your cousin alone?" He hadn't even realized he'd hissed that until the corridor was silent again. "How can he care so little about the both of you?"

"You don't know anything about my father." She was defending the bastard who left them to care for themselves. "He loves us, he just has an important job and-."

"Bullshit." He snapped. "You're a kid, and Lois is too fucking young to have to raise you! He needs to get his fucking act together or at least sign over his parental rights to someone who actually gives a damn about you!"

There was silence.

He flinched, hissed, cursed.

"Put me down."

He closed his eyes tightly. "Look-."

"Put me the fuck down!"

Cursing to himself, unable to understand how this girl could annoy the shit out of him and get him to be so moody, Dean let her down and turned to face her red-faced fury.

"You don't get to talk crap about my father." She hissed at him, eyes narrowed, seeming greener in her anger. "Not when your own father's a piece of shit!"

"You know _nothing_ about my father!" He snapped, pissed at both himself and her for his ability to just _lose_ it like this when he should be calm and collected.

"I know that like my father, he lost the woman he loved and never got over it." Chloe glared at him, unafraid.

"My mother was murdered by something evil." Dean snarled at her, insulted she was even comparing them. "Yours _is_ evil!"

She glared at him, tears forming in her eyes yet refusing to glide down her cheeks.

He felt like the villain all of a sudden and hated it.

"I think I can walk from here on out." She whispered, brushing passed him as she limped away in the direction they'd been going.

Dean closed his eyes and ran his hand over it with a groan.

_Great work, Winchester._

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The sound of banging woke her up.

Groaning, her face in _agony_, Lois sat up slowly, hand at her bleeding nose. She was in some sort of cage, and someone was slamming his boot-clad feet into the bars.

"_Finally_," Wade's voice could be heard. "I thought you were dead."

"Me too." Her voice was hoarse as she blinked a couple of times, feeling her swollen nose, a little afraid it was broken. "Where are we?"

"The Master Lair."

She crawled towards the front of the cage, seeing Wade sitting on the ground, hands shackled above him, symbols carved into his flesh. "Why are you shirtless?"

"I awoke like this." He grumbled, tugging on his shackles. "And apparently my mojo isn't even strong enough to get me out of this situation."

She had no idea what he meant by mojo, but didn't care to ask. "Have you see Chloe?"

He looked away from the shackles at that. "Yeah, last I saw of her I'd told her to run. Considering she's not here I'm hoping that means she's still alive."

Lois closed her eyes in relief. "Where's Goodnight now?"

"Hunting, I figure." Wade replied. "He only appeared briefly to throw and lock you up in there, before storming back out. I think he's worried that he hasn't caught or killed everyone by now."

There was a good thought.

Ignoring the pain in her face as best as she could, Lois tried squeezing her hands through the bars, hissing as the barbed wired curled around each bar cut into her skin.

"Don't even bother." Wade stopped her. "There's a padlock. Chloe said that she'd used some sort of discarded metal to unlock it when she was in there, but the creep must have realized that and gotten rid of it because I can't see it anywhere."

"Chloe was in here?" Lois felt sick at the realization.

Wade pulled on his shackles. "Yeah."

"Got any ideas on how we're going to escape here?" She sat down, leaning her back against the bars, careful with the barbed wire.

"I was hoping you'd have one." Wade replied.

Great.

They remained in silence for a couple of minutes, both going over the situation they found themselves in and trying to figure out how in the world would they get out.

"So...did someone throw a sadomasochistic party and not invite me or something?"

Lois jumped at the unexpected sound, turning, eyes widening and the confused looking man in the room with them.

"Derek!" Wade let out a groan of relief. "It was about time man! Find something to cut us free!"

"You know, I always figured if you'd be shackled _Chloe_ would somehow be involved, not the cousin." Derek muttered to himself as he ran his hand over his shortly cropped hair. "Okay, I'm going to get the equipment. Just, uh, don't go anywhere."

And with that he _went through the wall_.

Lois' mouth fell open.

Derek Fox was a meteor freak!

"Don't go anywhere." Wade growled. "Thinks he's _funny_ all of a sudden does he?"

"Chloe knows?" Even though she was asking it, Lois really didn't have a doubt.

"About our phasing ability?" Wade was apparently a meteor freak as well as Scott. "Course."

Lois shook her head, remembering all of the knowing glances between her cousin and the leader of the Hooligan Triad...as Adam called them. "Are you two...?"

Wade raised an eyebrow, a smirk lifting the side of his lips. "She's not legal. Yet."

That surprised her given the fact that she didn't take Wade for the law-abiding citizen.

Then again, this whole situation was just going to show her just how little she knew about her cousin or what was happening in her life, wasn't it?

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"There's a mental health facility in Star City." Chloe finally whispered from ahead of him, causing Dean to narrow his eyes. "They deal with people like me."

"People like you?" The hunter didn't like the sound of that.

"Yeah, "young adults with deep seated issues which cripple their daily lives"." She sounded like she was citing something she'd read somewhere. "I've been...hesitating...I don't..." she closed her eyes and took in a deep sigh before turning to face him, pale. "I don't want to be like _her_, locked up in some mental institution while sedated so much I don't know if I'm crapping myself or what...but you're right. Lois shouldn't have to deal with me."

"I never said that." He glared. "I said your father should man up and take care of the both of you."

"Well, he isn't." She didn't seem to be in the mood to fight anymore, resigned. "He couldn't handle my mom's madness, and he can't handle mine either I guess." The blonde sighed, running fingers through her hair. "I'd be there voluntarily, means I could leave whenever I chose...and they seem to believe less in medicine as they do "treating the root of the problem", whatever the hell that means."

"You can't really think checking yourself into a loony bin will actually _help_ you." Dean couldn't even wrap his head around the thought. "Has your Quack Doc been filling your head with this idea?"

"I haven't mentioned this to anyone but you." She looked vulnerable, hugging herself, seeming so tiny in his overwhelmingly large (compared to her) jacket.

He didn't know what to say to that.

Sending him a sad smile, Chloe turned and continued walking, hugging herself tighter.

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He sat in Sheriff Miller's office, staring at the large screen on which the cameras at the end of the men's infrared visors were attached, seeing the laser-eyes of the shapeshifters as they rode like hell towards the Luthor Castle. The Sheriff's Department of Smallville, Kansas was probably the most technologically advanced in the country, and it was all thanks to the demon's backing.

It annoyed him though, how this was getting out of hand.

And it was all the cousin's fault.

She wasn't supposed to be in the picture, and because she was the future had changed. She was supposed to be in Hope, mother of Hathaway's little spawn. Chloe was supposed to have barely made it out, a head injury leaving her wandering and disoriented, with no memory of what happened. It was supposed to be hard, but she was supposed to be here, in her home, alone.

Lois Lane had no place in this plan.

She was just messing things up.

If things had gone as they _should_ have he never would have had to make that deal to get Chloe out alive without things being too suspicious, and thus the girl wouldn't be in the situation she was in now.

If Hathaway had just stuck to his part in all of this Dean Winchester wouldn't be an issue either. He would have continued out of town before the nightfall, and then the townsfolk would have trapped the girls in their motel room...and things would have gone as Azazel had planned them.

And yet _nothing_ had gone as it should have, and Azazel knew that if Chloe was somehow able to escape she wouldn't take that opportunity if Dean and Lois were still inside and in danger.

These were attachments he couldn't handle, especially not the relationship between the cousins.

It was too dangerous.

He needed to protect the asset...and for that to happen, for things to be _somewhat_ righted and back on their original path...he needed to get rid of the cousin.

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**TBC**


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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"What's taking him so long?" Wade tried pulling at his shackles once more, his wrists abused and somewhat bloody, providing slight lubrication and yet not enough to help him slip his hands out of the tight iron embrace.

"Maybe he got lost." Or killed...but Lois didn't want to vocalize that though, although she could see the same questions on Wade's face. "We need a backup plan in case he doesn't make it back."

"I'm working on it." Wade grunted, pulling with all his might, his hands still held tight, although more blood seemed to drip as well.

"You're going to damage your hands." Lois commented, but didn't tell him to stop, instead examining the bars of her cage. They had barbed wire around each bar, and while she was sure it was an intimidation factor she wondered if it hadn't also been put there to keep those inside from checking the bars out too closely.

Maybe there were some that were loose.

Deciding on which wall to concentrate on first, Lois carefully avoided the spikes in the barbed wire and began to rattle the bars one by one. So far the bars all seemed fairly strong and immobile, but she didn't give up, continuing one by one patiently while sending quick looks towards the two different entrances to this room.

"So, who's the underwear model?" Wade was apparently in a chatty mood as he fought his shackles. "You finally gave Adam the boot or something? Everyone could see you were stringing him on anyway."

The brunette sent him a glare over her shoulder. "I'm not stringing Adam along."

"You know he's after your goods and yet given the fact that nothing's happened between you two, obviously you're not interested in sharing...with him at least." Wade's gaze were on his wrists. "Underwear model though? I couldn't figure out if you were the one he wanted or Chloe was." He finally settled his blue gaze on Lois. "So which is it? Who's he after?"

"Are you jealous or something?" Lois snorted as she tried another bar a little harder than needed.

"Of a _pretty boy_?" Wade scoffed. "As. If."

"Then why do you care?" The brunette moved slightly and tried another couple of bars, hissing when she cut her finger, bringing the wound to her mouth.

"I don't." He mumbled. "Just was wondering, considering if he's in your pants I'm going to have to get used to seeing him around."

"He's not in my pants." Dark hazel eyes rolled at that, thinking of the epic failure they'd had in his bedroom earlier. "He's just a _friend_."

Wade made a little noise.

She made up her face and tried another bar before freezing when it rattled. The girl fought the urge to squeal until she tried the next couple of bars, and found at least three more rattling and loose as well. If she could somehow get them out of the way she could easily squeeze through the opening!

Laying on her back on the ground, Lois bent her knees before driving her feet into the loose bars. Her ankle hurt a little but she ignored the pain as she gave the bars another kick.

The things remained in place but that didn't deter her as she began kicking them again and again and again. With each kick she could feel the wobbling growing worse, the bars getting looser.

Her smile grew as she continued to kick at the bars with as much force as she had within her.

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There was movement up ahead.

Dean yanked Chloe behind him, bringing a hand up towards his lips to silence her, before narrowing his eyes and silently waiting at the edge of the corner. The second the man passed Dean grabbed him and swung him into the wall with all his might.

"Jesus!" Derek Fox yelled, dropping the bag in his hands. "What the hell man?"

The hunter let go of the man, backing away. "Thought you were someone else."

"You mean the fucker that's carving into everyone?" Derek straightened his shirt, picking up his bag. "Nah. Not me."

"You've seen Goodnight?" Chloe stepped forwards.

"The guy's named Goodnight?" Derek made a face as he turned to her. "And as for your question, yeah, but it was only a glimpse as he turned a corner. I _also_ ran into Wade and Lois and they-."

"Wade's with Lois?" Chloe interrupted, eyes wide. "Are they okay?"

"Considering one's shackled to the wall and carved up, and the other is in some sort of cage, I'm saying they're not exactly having a very good time...but considering the bodies I've found...they could be worse." Derek sighed as he ran his hand over his shortly cropped hair. "I came back for the bolt cutter." He reached into the bag and pulled out the equipment. "I was heading back."

Chloe's gaze lowered to his body and then surprised Dean by running her hand over Derek's tattoos. "How? The others' are gone."

Derek shrugged, seeming to understand whatever she was saying. "I always use mine less. The other two get cocky and impatient, can't wait to turn a damn corner."

What the hell were these two talking about?

"I want to come with you." Chloe kept her hand on Derek's arm. "If that asshole has both Lois and Wade...wait." She then frowned, turning to Dean. "Wasn't Pete with Lois?"

"_Fuck_." Dean hissed, hoping that Pete's absence was due to his having escaped and not because Goodnight had killed him. The hunter mightn't know the boy well, but he'd respected him tremendously for his loyalty and bravery.

"I didn't see Pete, but I haven't found his body yet so maybe he hasn't gotten to him." Derek shrugged, looking both directions. "Last I saw Psycho he was dragging Sean's body away, probably towards the shrine."

Dean looked up at that, eyes narrowed. "Shrine?"

"Yeah, it's where he's putting the bodies after he's done with them." Derek was pale, obviously sick at his stomach at the memory. "I stumbled onto it while I was coming back here for the equipment. The place is filled with candles and these religious symbols and shit. And bodies. Everything's centered around this pedestal, don't know what the fuck is on it though, I high-tailed it out of there the second I realized what it was."

"If it's a shrine..." Dean turned towards her, his instinct roaring loudly, telling him what he had to do. "There might be some clue there as to what he is, what he's doing here, and how to stop him." He placed his hand on the girl's shoulder. "We need to go there."

"And to be honest, I'll move faster without you." Derek agreed point-blank.

Chloe closed her eyes, taking in a deep breath before nodding, obviously realizing that this was the best thing for her cousin. "Okay." Her eyes opened though and pinned Derek down. "Lois-."

He nodded, giving her a little reassuring smile.

She returned the smile hollowly.

Tightening his grip on her shoulder, Dean turned to Derek. "We need directions."

A fly flew in Derek's face, making his bat it away as he told them where they could find the shrine.

Chloe's eyes widened as she took a step back.

Dean yanked out his gun despite the fact that it only had one or two bullets left...which were only filled with rocksalt.

"What?" Derek went still immediately. "What is it?"

"You need to leave, _now_."

The man didn't wait for an explanation...racing _through the wall_.

Dean's eyes widened in shock before they went to Chloe, who didn't seem to think much about this. "You have _so much_ to explain if we get out of this alive."

She ignored him though, gaze behind him.

Turning around, Dean cursed as he saw Jacob Goodnight standing in the corridor, chain and meathook in hand. "Goddamit!" Putting away the gun, he grabbed Chloe's arm and began running in the opposite direction.

With a roar, Goodnight thundered as he took chase.

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A bar flew free, leaving a little larger section, though still not big enough for her to squeeze out of. Lois grinned, laying hard on the floor as she breathed in and out, encouraged by this progress. She took in a deep breath before concentrating on the next bar, egged on by the larger section just teasing her with its glimpse of freedom.

"Yes!" Wade gave a little cry of victory.

Lois turned her head towards his direction, finding that somehow he'd managed to free one of his hands from the shackles, and was now trying to fight the other free. "I'm impressed."

"I'm good at getting something big into and out of small openings." There was a double innuendo there, she knew it for a fact thanks to his smug sneer.

Rolling her eyes, Lois concentrated on the bars once more, kicking out as hard as she could. "Once you get free get your ass over here and help me out."

"Yes, Your Highness." He snorted, grabbing onto the chain of the shackle and trying to tear out the bolt it was attached to from the wall.

Another bar went flying away, and Lois' foot nearly got caught in the mess of barbed wire, yet she slowly freed herself before drawing her attention to the next bar.

"You'd think I'd have enough mojo for one fricken wrist." Wade kicked at the wall with a growl as he let go of the chain with a deeply displeased growl.

It was curious because from how he was acting it would seem that his meteor ability was being able to phase through things like she'd seen Derek do, and yet natural abilities didn't fade the way that this one had. So it made her wonder if somehow the ability wasn't manufactured...and that opened up a million other can of worms in her head.

Also, how long had Chloe known about this?

And why hadn't she told her?

She trusted Lois...didn't she?

The brunette stopped kicking at the bar, taking in a deep breath as she frowned at the ceiling of the cage. "Why didn't she tell me?"

"Tell you what?" He tested the strength of the chain again.

"About your meteor ability. About the fact that she knows you enough to know that you have one." She felt more than a little hurt. "She should know that I'd understand-that I wouldn't tell anyone if she didn't want me to."

"Is this really the moment for this?"

She closed her eyes and rested on arm over them, feeling terribly vulnerable right now.

Wade sighed, giving a little groan. "She was just keeping my secret for me...and even if she'd told you about my ability you'd want to know about _how_ she found out, and she wouldn't want you to know because she wouldn't want you to worry more."

The brunette frowned, wiping at the rebellious tears in her eyes as she turned towards the man. "Why would I worry more?"

"Because she'd have to explain a couple of things to you and admit that she was nearly killed some months back."

Lois sat up immediately, eyes wide. "She told you about Hope?"

"Hope?" Wade made a face at her. "No. I'm talking about California."

"California?" And then it hit Lois, her eyes widening. "The bear and star...she was talking about the Californian flag."

Wade raised an eyebrow at her.

"You were in California with her?" Lois felt pieces of the puzzle beginning to finally fall into place, eyes widening. "What happened there? Who tried to kill her?"

"I'm still not a hundred per cent sure...about _anything._" Wade surprised her by admitting, running his hand over his head. "I got dragged into it mostly at the end, and I missed out on a lot of the important, defining stuff. But I told her I didn't want to know whatever the fuck had happened because what I caught was fucked up enough as it was."

That did _not_ sound good.

"_Finally_." Wade slid his hand free, grunting at the pain yet lips tilted in victory. "Now let's get you out of there before that asshole comes back for more fun and games."

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Dean's yell was the only warning before he let go of her hand.

Instead of continuing running, as would have been the smart move, Chloe skidded to a stop despite the pain in her feet and turned in time to see that Goodnight had thrown the meathook, and yet thankfully the sharp point hadn't embedded itself into Dean. Instead the large curve had hit him hard in the back of his head, sending him falling to the ground and clutching at his bleeding head, obviously disoriented by the blow.

The hunter pulled his hand away from his head, staring at the blood nearly unseeingly, before turning to face Goodnight as he closed the distance between them. Dean barely had time to lift his hands in protection before Goodnight swung around and slammed his booted foot into Dean's throat, pinning him to the wall.

Hands on both ends of the boot, Dean groaned as he grabbed hold tightly and twisted that foot roughly.

Goodnight made an inhuman sound of pain as his body turned with the jerk, landing him on his knees. He kicked backwards at the hunter.

Dean tumbled out of the way, Goodnight's boot slamming against the wall where the hunter's head had been seconds before.

Rolling onto his knees, Dean reached for the chain with the meathook and grunted under its weight as he swung it towards the man's head.

Goodnight's hand reached out and caught the curve of the hook, stilling its progressing, yanking it out of Dean's hands.

Chloe jumped onto Goodnight's back, trying to use the surprise of her weight to pin him down, but she was the one surprised when her weight seemed like nothing to him. She thought fast, yanking Dean's jacket off and around Goodnight's throat, pulling it crossways behind the neck, trying to choke him.

Goodnight stood, grabbing the material against his throat and easily yanking it away.

Chloe cried, forced to grab onto Goodnight's shoulders and encircle him with her thighs to keep from falling to the ground once he stood tall. She beat her fist into his back, knowing that it wasn't going to hurt him but hopefully it'd distract him enough to give Dean some extra seconds to think of something.

Dean was on his feet, gun out as he shot the man in the face twice, causing Goodnight to roar as he took steps backwards in pain.

She bit deep into his neck, tasting blood and feeling sick, yet kept her teeth lodged in.

With a roar he slammed back against the wall, forcing the oxygen out of her lungs and forcing her to let go and slump down to the ground, disoriented.

Goodnight kept yelling and clawing at his face.

"Get up!" Dean yelled, grabbing her hand and yanking her up, forcing her behind him as they began racing in the direction of the shrine.

Goodnight roared before giving chase once more.

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Derek was really beginning to wonder if maybe it wasn't time to try see what it was like living life the straight and narrow way. If he'd just gone to community college like his mother had wanted he wouldn't be in this mess, and he had the brains to do it. The scholarship wouldn't have been like the one he'd gotten for football, but he knew that he would have been able to get an academic one if needed.

If he got out of here alive he should try it.

But right now he needed to concentrate on other things, like getting Wade and himself out of this place. He didn't want to think about Scott's body in that fucking shrine, didn't want to think about how Scott had met his end...especially since he hadn't been able to find the guy's head. If it hadn't been for his clothes Derek wouldn't have even been able to recognize him.

Shaking his head, Derek continued forwards, close to where Wade and Lois were.

Hearing something, he turned towards the sound, his fear disappearing into relief when he recognized the person there. "Jesus! You scared the shit out of me!" Running a hand over his hair as he let out a sigh of relief, Derek cleared his throat. "Thank fuck you're okay. We need to get the other's out and then-."

With a surprisingly fast movement, a rusty pipe flashed into sight before it was jammed into his throat.

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**TBC**


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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They'd gained enough distance on Goodnight so that when they turned the corner they were out of sight. Dean found an open door and pushed Chloe inside before racing in as well and locking the door. It was dark inside of the room but neither of them searched for a light switch, leaving the darkness inside as their eyes slowly adjusted and their breaths lowered. Chloe backed away from the door slowly while Dean glared around them, trying to see something.

They could hear the sound of Goodnight's footsteps coming closer and closer.

Dean's fingers closed around Chloe's arm and led her towards a wardrobe, easing the door open and helping her inside as he slid silently within as well, closing the door as he moved the damp-smelling clothes in front of them as some sort of protection.

Dean leaned hard against the back wall of the wardrobe, Chloe huddled next to him, both gazing at the closed door, silent as death as they listened to the sound of Goodnight breaking in doors and searching the rooms. It mightn't have been smart to stop running and instead hole themselves in a room, but Dean had felt Chloe slowing, had known that with her feet the way they were they wouldn't be able to get much farther, and he'd made the decision that might kill them both.

But what other choice was there?

Leaving her behind?

No way in hell!

The door to the room they were hiding in was kicked in.

Chloe's hand found his in the dark, causing the young hunter to jerk in surprise and narrow his gaze at their joined hands before raising his frown to her face. But the kid wasn't paying him any attention, her worried gaze on the wardrobe's door.

Dean _really_ wasn't comfortable with touchy-feely-ness, and yet he fought the urge to remove his hand and instead joined his gaze with hers, listening as he could hear Goodnight tearing up the room before pausing in front of the wardrobe.

Chloe began to tremble viciously.

Dean refused to look away from the door but he shifted his hand slightly and squeezed her hand.

The action drew Chloe's terrified gaze away from the door towards him.

Suddenly they could hear the sound of a lock being turned, and with a grunt, the wardrobe was moved.

Chloe gave a little cry as the jerking movement sent her nearly head-butting into Dean.

They were being moved...wheeled.

Dean's hands went to the door and found he could open it. "Let us out of here!"

There was no answer as they were wheeled out of the room.

"No!" Chloe began pounding on the walls of the wardrobe.

Dean began kicking at the doors as they were turned, bumping as they went over the threshold and wheeled into the hallway. "Let us out you motherfucker!"

Chloe joined him, her feet cut and no doubt hurting her, but adrenaline must have been high because she put as much force and determination in her kicks. The wood was thick but the lock mustn't have been as strong as it'd once been, because Dean could hear the sound of something breaking, and then the door flew open.

Too bad that was exactly the same moment when the wardrobe was tossed down a flight of stairs.

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"You _dare_ summon _me_?"

Azazel rolled his eyes, not at all intimidated by the annoyed male in the Sheriff's office. "Look at this."

The man in the suit narrowed his eyes before turning to the monitors in time to see the Shapeshifter force breaching through the front doors of Luthor Castle. "Tell me you didn't call me here to watch your pet dogs training."

"Convince me you knew nothing about Jacob Goodnight being alive." He stood, knowing that he didn't usually let out his demonic aura, and yet his anger and frustration was letting bits of it leak out of his host in visible dark purple mist.

"Goodnight was put down." Dark eyes narrowed. "What game are you playing?"

Azazel wasn't sure he believed the other creature. "Goodnight is alive and in that house with the Asset."

Those eyes widened in fury. "How could you be so _careless_?" His own infuriated aura began to seep out as outside lightning and thunder warred. "You _swore_ you'd be more careful with _this_ Asset. I should have _known_ after your failure with Mary Campbell that we couldn't trust another Asset with you! Do you _know_ how rare it is for another to rise so soon after the death of a former? Usually a hundred or so years take place in between the death and births of Assets!"

Azazel didn't rise to the bait, didn't let his anger fuel him, instead studied the one before him and came to a conclusion. "You don't have a hand in Goodnight's return."

That anger grew. "Of _COURSE_ I don't! I have as much invested in this as _you_ do."

"Then who else could know about this? About her?" Azazel's eyes flashed gold. "This wasn't part of the plan. This wasn't supposed to happen."

"This is exactly like what happened with Mary Campbell." The other male declared, anger simmering down to frustration. "Her family was supposed to be removed from her life sooner than they were...you let your weakness for her ruin the whole plan and I refuse to let your weakness for _this_ Asset ruin all we have planned."

"Fondness. Not weakness." The demon corrected, sitting back down. "And just _try_ take this operation over. My people are all over this town. Don't assume I've made the same mistakes I did with Mary. My son's personally wearing Gabriel Sullivan as a meatsuit and keeping him as far from this place and her as possible. General Lane's similarly occupied. Moira..." his eyes widened. "_Moira_."

"What about the thieving bitch?"

"She tried to kill the Asset once before, who isn't to say that whoever is behind this isn't involved with her somehow?"

Dark eyes narrowed. "I'll handle that investigation. We can't afford to lose this Asset." He sat down, crossing his legs. "Either have one of your people take over the cousin, or have her done away with. I won't tolerate any more deviation from the Path. Her presence is no longer acceptable. It compromises _everything._"

"The Asset will realize something is wrong if the cousin is taken over, and she's _much_ too mentally unstable to handle the cousin's death." Azazel scoffed at just how little the other knew. "It is another reason why I have called you." He leaned forwards. "I have need of your unique little skill."

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Dean groaned as he slowly came too, his vision blurry and his head hurting him. He found himself sitting on the ground and chained to the wall with the shackles raising his hands up above his head. The light in the room was dim, provided by a legion of candles, and it was the smell that warned Dean before his gaze rested on the first body.

Eyeless, Jenna's body was twisted at an awkward ankle, bones obviously broken, her mouth frozen in a horrified cry...her death had been a horrible one. Other bodies were there, carved and eyeless as was she. Phelan, Beels, Sean...Scott's headless body...

Tugging on his chains, Dean refused to look at the arranged bodies of the dead and instead gazed around the room, at the symbols painted on the four walls in what looked like human blood.

And then there, in the far right next to what was an altar, was the pedestal upon which a book rested...but Dean didn't notice it...no, instead his gaze rested on the ground right before it where a symbol had been drawn on the ground with blood. Within the symbol Chloe lay, unmoving, candles burning brightly around her.

Symbols had been drawn on her body with what also seemed like blood, but thankfully unlike the other corpses these were drawn on and not carved into.

"Chloe?" He called, voice low as to not attract too much attention, and yet loud enough.

She didn't answer, the blood at her forehead proved that she'd gotten a good lick like he had during the tumble down the stairs, and was probably out cold like he had been until recently.

Or, at least he prayed to any deity listening that that was what this was.

Hearing the sound of grunting, Dean closed his eyes and pretended to still be unconscious as he peered through narrow slits.

"You're getting sloppy." A familiar voice shocked the hell out of him and nearly made him open his eyes wide as Margaret came into view, pulling her shawl around her tighter. "I had to get my hands dirty with this one. We can't let _one_ of these little shits make it out of here alive. You know that."

Jacob Goodnight appeared, dragging Derek by the leg, a rusty iron pipe sticking out of the man's throat.

"There's still that little blonde boy who's still unaccounted for. You need to find him and kill him. You also need to remember where you left that black boy's body and bring it here. We need them all. Only once you're done with that can you finish off Big Boobs and the Convict." Margaret reached into a pocket and pulled out a knife. "I'll prepare this body in the meantime and keep an eye on these two."

Goodnight let go of Derek's leg once his corpse was positioned as desired in relevance to the other corpses. He stared at Derek for a second before his gaze slid to where Chloe was.

"Don't." Margaret snapped, pointing the knife at him. "Don't think I don't know the evils that are going through your mind right now. The filth that sluts like these tempt you with by flashing their breasts and their flirty attitudes. Don't make me have to cleanse you again."

Goodnight took a step back before storming out of the room.

Jacob Goodnight was the submissive in this relationship.

Jesus, that was fucked up.

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The shapeshifters made their way into the Luthor Castle, guns at the ready as they made their way through the first level, clearing it, coming across a room which was blocked off.

Sheriff Miller motioned for his men to knock it down.

The deputies rammed the door over and over again, the force behind it heavy and resisting, but in the end they managed to break it down and storm the room, finding a crying blonde human begging for his life.

Sheriff Miller stormed up towards the first survivor they'd encountered. "Where are the others?"

"I don't know." The boy was trying to be brave. "But I heard sounds on the other side of this wall."

Narrowing his eyes, Sheriff Miller walked towards the mirror in the dark room and grabbed a flashlight, shining it at the mirror as he stared closely...seeing vague shapes on the other side.

"It's double sided." He moved to the boy. "Go to the cars and lock yourself in. Do you got that?"

The boy nodded before racing out.

Sheriff Miller turned to his men before lifting his weapon and firing at the glass, their shots joining his as the glass shattered revealing a dark hallway behind the mirror.

"Remember boys and girls, the humans are to be protected, the Asset retrieved, and the target detained and interrogated before being put down with extreme prejudice."

"Yes sir!" His people chorus before one by one making their way into the secret passage.

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"What was that?" Lois hissed, stopping as she listened intently.

"It's coming from a couple of floors down." Wade stopped as well, tilting his head to the side. "It also sounds like...gunshots."

Lois' eyes widened. "Dean must have found his weapons!"

"That sounds like more guns than one guy can fire on his own." Wade mumbled, tightening his grip on the bar of Lois' cage which he'd picked up for a weapon before they'd escaped the cage room. He made to continue walking when he suddenly paused and turned to frown at the brunette. "He brought _weapons_? Who the hell _is_ this guy?"

"Someone you want on your side when shit goes down." Lois replied, passing him as she continued walking, holding her own bar.

"And you thought _I_ was a bad influence?" Wade snorted behind her in disgust. "Want to explain this?"

"Not really, no." She opened her mouth before turning around and placing her hand on Wade's mouth.

He narrowed his eyes but then he heard it too.

Someone was coming their way.

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"I know you're awake, you know." Margaret's voice was mocking as she carved into Derek's face. "Your breathing isn't like one who's asleep...or unconscious."

Realizing that there was no reason to continue pretending, Dean opened his light hazel eyes and narrowed them on the woman. "I have to say, that harmless old grandmother thing you had going was quite convincing."

She smiled. "You'd be surprised to know that generally I'm a pleasant person to know."

"You're right." He sneered. "I AM surprised."

Margaret tsked, turning towards Dean, bloody knife finally being removed from Derek's skin. "It's a pity you were here. It was a pity you were in Hope. It was a pity you were born of taint and filth."

"Don't you fucking talk about my parents like that!"

She stood and came towards him, slamming the handle of the knife against his head, cutting him slightly. "Don't curse. It's ungodly."

"And killing _is_?" He snapped, not going to back down.

"Yes. When sin is so thick on them it _reeks_ we're doing a service to the Lord and _humanity _by doing away with the whores and alcoholics and thieves!" Margaret snapped, tightening her grip on her knife. "Everyone in this place has sin so thick it makes me _nauseas_!"

"What could those kids have _ever_ done to deserve what you did to them?" He shot back, trying to ignore Jenna and Sean's dead faces.

"They defiled their bodies with the lust of the flesh. Their sins were loud and continuous. They were unashamed of their transgressions!"

"What about Chloe then?" He tugged at his chains viciously. "That girl's a _virgin_."

"She's the worse of them all. She's the reason they had to die. We were here to end her evil existence." Margaret turned towards the blonde before turning towards him. "I guess your presence here is understandable. She tainted herself for you the same way in which your mother tainted herself for your father."

Dean went still, horror and confusion mixing inside of him. "_What_?"

"And like your mother, she must be stopped before it is too late."

White fury simmered under his skin. "You killed my mother."

"Not me personally. No. Not even my son had a hand in her death. But it had to be done. She needed to die...just like this child needs to die as well." Margaret replied, turning towards Chloe. "I just find it amusing that both your mother's death, and that which I will give this child, will be able to be traced back to Winchester men. Father and son nonetheless. You both had a hand in the reason they had to die."

He was still with undeniable horror.

What the hell was this bitch saying?

"At least you don't love this child like your father did your mother." The old woman went towards the unconscious blonde. "It should make this easier...not that you will last much longer after I finish what Moira failed to do."

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**TBC**


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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Chloe's head hurt like hell.

Groaning, the blonde brought her hand to her head and slowly sat up, eyes closed.

"Chloe look out!"

Hearing Dean's voice, Chloe's eyes flew open and she managed to roll out of the way in time to avoid the slash of the knife. She pushed up on her feet and stumbled slightly, backing into something hard, turning her head in time to catch the item that'd fallen down with the blow. Her hand came in contact with a leather book with a cage etched in the cover.

It was the book she was supposed to be looking for!

The blonde didn't have time to cry out in happiness though because the knife came at her once again and she used the book to slam the hand away. Only now was she able to concentrate on whom was holding the knife, surprise and confusion spearing through her to see the grandmotherly Margaret.

"What the hell is going on?" Twirling off to the side, the knife slicing the air where her head had been only seconds ago, Chloe nearly tripped on a candle in her haste.

Dean struggled with his chains and the ring that connected them to the wall above him. "Don't you fucking touch her you psycho bitch!"

Bending down, Chloe grabbed one of the candles and threw the hot wax onto Margaret's face. Unfortunately it didn't slow the woman down, only seemed to add to her fervor as she sliced the air around Chloe over and over again, the blonde having to use the book as a shield time and time again.

Crying out as a swipe of the knife came away with some of her blood, her arm stinging from the cut, Chloe stumbled backwards and went tumbling down when the back of her heel hit something. Whatever she landed on wasn't soft in the least bit, and her hand came away bloody.

Margaret took the opportunity to slice at her, once again drawing blood.

Bodies...she was on bodies!

Crying out in horror, Chloe tried to detangle herself from the limbs of the dead, which seemed to wrap themselves around her and want to keep her there with them.

She dropped the book in horror, terror, desperation.

Flashes of her own reflection in the broken bathroom mirror as she bled out, slowly dying, raced before her eyes. They were quickly followed by flashes of Sarah's dead, mutilated body hanging on a cross, and then followed by Melanie's lifeless eyes as she was pinned to the wall with nails.

Her heart agonized with its ghost pain and Chloe clutched at her chest, dropping with the pain, unknowingly thus missing the swipe with the knife that would have opened her throat. She screamed as she held at her heart, which was reliving being stabbed twice, both times the knife dragging through her skin to create the cross that marred her chest.

A kick landed her on her back, and then Margaret was straddling her hips, raising the knife over her head, readying to dive it into her heart.

Chloe stared up at the older woman, her image interchanging with her mother's, the similarities fucking with her already unstable mind.

For horrifying seconds Moira was the one straddling her, giving her that eager and downright _evil_ smile as the knife came downwards harshly. Chloe was back to that day...staring into those blue eyes as she had before, unable to believe that her mother-.

Suddenly, right before the knife could pierce her skin the image-the trance-was broken as Dean appeared out of apparently nowhere and wrapped the chains around Margaret's neck, yanking her back and off of Chloe. There was a brief struggle as Margaret clawed at the tight chains around her neck, and then there was a sharp movement, a loud cracking, and Margaret's body went lax.

Dean loosened his hold on the elderly woman, letting her dead body tumble to the ground before suddenly he was there, kneeling over the blonde. "Chloe?"

She whimpered, clutching at her heart and closing her eyes as she rode out the pain.

He rested his hand on her head and left it there. He didn't rub her hair, didn't whisper anything soothing, just placed his cool hand over the heated throb on her forehead.

Slowly but surely the agony melted into pain then into discomfort until fading into mere soreness.

Finally her green eyes fluttered open and she gazed up into Dean's face, a little shocked at the stark emotion in his eyes as he stared down at her. His features were all blank, his eyebrows nearly drawn together in concentration, the emotions in his eyes vast and all competing. It was obvious that he was deep in thought, and deeply disturbed by whatever he was contemplating.

"I'm in the middle of corpses." She whispered to him, although she knew he already knew this.

Dean continued to look at her, those eyes growing more disturbed.

"Can we stand now?"

The hunter took in a deep breath before standing, pulling her up with him at the same time.

What had happened while she was unconscious?

Why had Margaret tried killing her in the same way her mother had?

Why was Dean so severe-looking?

His silence was unnerving as hell as well.

Hugging herself, chilled to the bone, the blonde looked around herself realizing that they were in the shrine. Her gaze lowered to the bodies arranged on the floor, giving a little shiver as she remembered lying amongst them. She felt unclean and seriously in need of a bath.

Suddenly blinking as she remembered something, Chloe turned towards Dean, eyes wide as her gaze went from his shackled wrists to the wall and back. "How did you-?"

She realized that the ring that the chains went through and which had once connected them to the wall was now just dangling on the chains.

Oh wow.

He'd pulled it out of the wall!

She was highly impressed.

"Are you okay?" She forgot about all else, eyeing his bruised and bloody wrists, still very shackled. "Thank you..."

He made a noncommittal sound.

"We need to go. Derek might have gotten to Wade and Lois and-."

Dean cleared his throat. "He didn't."

"How would you-?" Her eyes widened and she turned away from him to stare at the bodies, her stomach going horrible as she gazed upon Derek's freshly cut into body. "_No_." She turned to Dean and grabbed the hem of his shirt in her urgency. "They're still in the cage room. We have to go get them!"

He hesitated before taking in a deep breath. "We need to first make sure there isn't something here that can help us."

A part of her wanted to tell him to go to hell, but another understood the rationale behind the decision. It was why they'd come here after all, wasn't it? And anyway, how would they help the others if they got caught by Goodnight and killed because they couldn't find a way of how to kill him if he proved not to be human?

Dean was already checking the items in the room, going towards the altar straightaway, staring at the different symbols and idols and such that were there. "What's in the book you used?"

She gulped, not really wanting to set his attention on Azazel's little book, but she'd make him suspicious if she refused to answer, wouldn't she? So with that reasoning the blonde picked up the book and took in a deep breath before opening it, flicking through the pages...blinking.

"What's in the book?" Dean turned towards her, his annoyance growing.

"Nothing." She got to the last page, honestly shocked to her core. "The pages are blank."

"The hell?" Dean stalked towards her and gazed over her shoulder as she flipped through the pages once more, proving her point. "That makes no sense."

"Like any of this has." And yet she was thinking the same thing.

Why the hell did Azazel want a blank book?

Dean left her side, continuing to search.

Chloe knew she should be helping, but she couldn't put the book down, couldn't help but search the blank pages over and over for something she must have missed. There wasn't any conceivable reason why the demon had sent her here specifically to look for a book with nothing in it. And it wouldn't have been placed on a pedestal either if it was just...nothing.

Snapping the book closed, Chloe shook her head as she skimmed the leather cover and binding, surprised to find no mark from the many slashes it'd received from Margaret's knife.

Dean was now staring at the bodies on the floor, almost as if memorizing the pattern they were placed in, as he'd been doing with everything else in the room.

Shaking her head, Chloe finally tore her gaze from the book and looked around the room, avoiding looking at the bodies.

Dean now stood over Margaret's going through her pockets and such, searching for something. He found a set of old looking keys, trying them on his shackles before finally finding the one which unlocked them and set his wrists free.

Chloe turned her back on him and gazed at the door, noticing something behind it. The blonde stepped towards the door and closed it, staring at the sigil in the door. It was the anti-demon one Azazel had told her was all over the castle...and below it was another sigil she didn't recognize...but it was obviously meant to ward some other sort of being from being able to enter as well.

Why ward this room if it held a blank book?

It only made her surer that despite its appearance, this book was important somehow.

"There's nothing useful here." Finally Dean was at her side, staring at the sigils with narrowed eyes before finally opening the door. "Let's go."

Chloe nodded, following after him as fast as her bare and sore feet would allow.

She still had no idea why in the world Margaret had tried killing her, but the blonde decided that for now that wasn't important.

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They hid inside one of the rooms, peering out through a slit in the door at the figure as it walked in front of the door.

Lois' eyes widened in disbelief as she threw the door open and rushed out. "Pete!"

He jumped in shock, turning around. "Gees! You scared me!"

The brunette hugged the younger guy tightly as Wade emerged from the room. "I thought you were dead!"

"Thankfully, so did Goodnight." Pete chuckled as he patted her back. "I'm also fortunate to have a hardhead, though I think I'm gonna need six Tylenol to even _begin_ dealing with the headache I have now." He seemed to finally notice Wade and raised an eyebrow. "Why are you shirtless?"

Wade ignored the question. "Have you seen anyone else?"

Pete shook his head as Lois pulled away. "You two are the first people I've come across since I came too."

"We heard sounds of guns being shot." Lois announced.

"Me too." He agreed. "It's the only thing that saved me, actually."

"What do you mean?" Wade narrowed his eyes.

"I was hiding in this dead end with Goodnight way too close for comfort, but when he heard the gunshots he turned and went the other way and never saw me." Pete replied, frowning. "I don't know who or where the people with the guns are, but they're in for hell if Goodnight's gone in their direction."

"The asshole might be a force to reckon with, but I doubt even _he _can go up against a bullet and survive." Wade made a face.

"I wouldn't be too sure of that." Pete made a face, hugging himself.

"What do you mean?" Lois frowned.

"It's just that while I was hiding from him in the dead end I got a good look at him, especially when he turned away to head in the direction of the shots." Pete shivered slightly. "Those flies? There's a reason they're always around whenever he is. They're coming from his head. Or, er, a _hole_ in the back of his head."

"The _hell_?" Wade took a step back.

"He didn't fake his own death then?" Lois whispered, feeling cold in fear.

"No," Pete shook his head. "I'm pretty sure that shot should have killed him. It isn't even sewed up or anything. I mean it's this huge hole and there's some torn skin and flies keep flying out of it."

"He's...rotting." Lois felt a wave of nausea wash over her.

"Fucking hell." Wade growled, running his hand over his face.

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There were gunshots like crazy.

Dean held his hand up to stop her advancing figure, eyes narrowed as he tried to locate the sounds but for the life of him he couldn't decipher which hallways the sounds were echoing from. It unnerved him that there were apparently other players in this mix that he knew nothing about, but he had to convince himself that whoever they were they were on their team. Why else pack heat like this when they had something like Goodnight on their side?

Chloe was silent and obedient behind him, hugging herself against the cold, his jacket having been left behind during her fight with Goodnight.

It bothered him to have her running around in her underwear, especially considering the look he'd seen Goodnight give her unconscious figure.

That protectiveness that'd always seemed to roar was a million times worse now, fueled by paranoia at Margaret's words. Sure, she was a raving psychotic bitch, but he didn't think she'd been lying to him. It explained why so much shit was happening to this kid. For some reason she had a target on her back...just like his mother had...and it was somehow Dean's fault.

But how?

And why?

Dean hadn't done anything to this kid!

He'd saved her, yes, but he doubted that that was what was behind it all.

And then there was that whole part about Chloe tainting herself for him the same way in which his mother had for his father. Anyone listening to that would have immediately thought that he'd taken the girl's virginity...and that SO hadn't happened! And yet...and yet it was obvious that there was something he didn't know going on. It was frustrating as hell...especially since it hinted the fact that his father was keeping something about his mother a secret.

Now that Dean thought about it, hadn't his father been weird around Chloe in Hope? Hadn't he just stood there and watched her in fascinated horror? Hadn't Dean caught the older man sending looks in the girl's direction? Hadn't he asked all sorts of questions about the girls when it was all over? Hadn't those questions been more concerning Chloe than Lois?

His father knew something.

He KNEW something.

And he hadn't told Dean.

It fucking pissed him off!

"_Dean_." Chloe whispered, her cold fingers making contact with the skin of his arm and causing goose bumps to race up his arm.

He jerked away from her on instinct before cursing softly, running a hand over his hair as he gazed down at the girl who was still clutching the book she'd used as a shield against Margaret. Chloe was cold. It was obvious in the goose bumps on her skin, the way she held herself, and the way her...

The hunter looked away immediately and cursed, yanking his t-shirt over his head nearly frantically as he threw it on her head. "Put that on."

She pulled it from her head and gave him a little confused frown. "This isn't going to warm me up much."

"Put. It. On." He refused to look at her until she did.

The blonde eyed him in confusion, looking down at her own body in enquiry. For a moment she just looked at herself thoughtfully, and then gave a little laugh and looked up at him in amusement. "Really?"

He would have glared at her if he was looking at her.

"Wow." She was chuckling softly to herself as she placed the book between her thighs and deigned to finally cover herself up. "If it had been _Wade_..."

Dean grunted, not appreciating the comparison.

There was silence.

Taking in a deep breath, Dean turned towards her, confused to find her staring at his bare chest with fascination. "What?" His voice was gruff, annoyed and harsh.

She didn't seem to notice, her lips twitching. "Now _your_ nipples are hard with the cold."

Jesus.

Clearing his throat, Dean folded his arms over his chest and then felt stupid for doing so.

"Who would have guessed you're such a _prude_." Chloe snorted, cheeky and mischievous like some sort of imp as she shook her head. "Don't worry, you haven't taken my naked-male-chest virginity. I've seen my fair share of them already."

Rolling her eyes, the blonde reached for the book again and walked passed him, shaking her head.

Dean watched her go, eyes narrowed, before his long legs helped him overtake the girl with ease and he took the lead once more.

There was just too much junk cluttering his mind right now. He needed to find Lois and get the girls out of here.

Once they were all safe he'd let himself think about all he'd learnt here tonight.

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"Will you stop firing?" Sheriff Miller snapped, annoyed beyond belief at this moment. "It was a fucking rat!"

His men were all bashful at their trigger-happiness. Some mumbled to themselves about shadows while the others sneered in disgust at those who'd filled that rat with bullets.

He hoped against hope that Azazel hadn't been watching during that part. The gods knew that the demon didn't exactly have the greatest confidence in them to begin with and that display of nerves on some of his younger deputies' part wasn't going to win their unit any sort of respect at all.

Shaking his head, the head Shapeshifter pushed onwards, following the scent of death.

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They didn't see it coming.

A door they were passing opened and the next thing Chloe knew Dean had been yanked into the room and the door shut against her. She screamed, banging on the door, trying to get in but it was locked, the sounds of fighting and grunts of pain echoing from inside.

The walls were being banged on, furniture was broken, and curses could be heard inside.

There was then a sharp sound of wood breaking, loud and piercing...and then all was silent.

Chloe stopped banging against the door, keeping her hand to the door though, terror filling her. "_Dean_?"

The lock was undone, the sound loud and ominous, as suddenly the door swung open to reveal Jacob Goodnight in the doorway.

Her every instinct told her to run, and yet the blonde was frozen in her spot, seeing Dean lying on the floor.

No.

He couldn't be dead!

No!

The blonde made to run passed Goodnight but he grabbed her easily and slammed her back into the wall. He held her there easily with one hand to her neck while the other pressed against her chest, making inhuman sounds of displeasure.

"Stop it!" She clawed at his hand, trying to kick at him yet unable to. "I'm sick of you! Don't touch me!"

With a yank he tore open Dean's shirt, baring her scar to him.

A couple of flies flew out of apparently nowhere from behind him.

Chloe stared at their flight in confusion for a second before being brought back to the present by his grip lowering to her underwear. "No! NO!"

He heaved like some sort of animal in heat.

Another couple of flies emerged...from his head?

He leaned against her, bringing his mouth to her chest, running his tongue over her scars.

Screaming, Chloe tried to push his head away...her finger slipping into some sort of hole and ending inside...the blonde cried and yanked her hand out, smelling something horribly putrid on her bloody fingertips.

He didn't at all seem concerned that her fingers had been inside of his head, instead concentrating on lowering his pants with his free hand.

Suddenly something swung out from the doorway and hit Goodnight hard on the back of his head, causing him to fall forwards into Chloe and the wall. He let go of her and was in the process of turning around when Dean yelled as he emerged from the doorway, brandishing what looked like a silver candlestick holder as he bashed Goodnight in the hole in his head.

"You're" Dean slammed the candlestick harder. "Fucking" Another hard blow. "Annoying" Another. "Me!" With the last blow the candlestick holder broke through the skin around the hole and went through Goodnight's head, one section emerging through an eyesocket, popping his eye out in the process.

Goodnight reared up, roaring, trying to yank the candlestick holder out of his head before finally collapsing to his knees.

Dean sneered before giving a vicious kick to the candlestick holder, wedging it in deeper into the skull, another section of it emerging through Goodnight's other eye socket.

Goodnight swayed once, twice, and then fell backwards, the candlestick lodging itself completely in his skull and destroying his head.

Chloe didn't realize she was bent over vomiting watery bile until Dean's hands were on her thighs, raising her underwear back up to cover her. She cried, horror and shame and all sorts of emotions wedged deep inside of her.

Oh god.

Could she be more pathetic than she was now?

She closed her eyes tightly against the nausea and disgust before finally sitting and looking at the bruised and injured man. "I thought you were dead."

He snorted. "Takes more than...whatever he was...to kill Dean Winchester."

A car accident had though.

Just remembering that made her nauseas once more, but she forced a smile on her face as she let him help her up, and then noticed the way he flinched and touched his ribs. Obviously some were broken.

Silently, Chloe grabbed Dean's arm and placed it around her shoulders, silently supporting him as they two began to limp away.

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**TBC**


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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"Hands in the air!"

"Sheriff Miller?" Lois recognized the man although she put her hands up nonetheless along with Pete and Wade. "It's me, Lois Lane."

The guns lowered as the deputies fanned out, letting their leader go towards her, holding his gun tightly. "Do you know where the other civilians are?"

She shook her head, finally lowering her hands, fighting tears. "The last we saw Chloe, Dean and Derek they were alive, but we don't know if they still are or if anyone else is either."

"Keep your weapons drawn." Wade frowned at the deputies. "Unless you've put that bastard out of his misery then he's still around and you need to keep alert."

"What do you know?" Sheriff Miller narrowed his eyes.

Pete cleared his throat. "It's Jacob Goodnight. That's all."

Sheriff Miller seemed to be examining them, before nodding. "Hernandez, Donovan, escort them to the cars."

"I'm not going anywhere!" Lois grabbed his arm. "My cousin's still in here somewhere!"

"And we're going to find her." Sheriff Miller replied stiffly. "But we need you and the others safe and sound and out of the way."

"But-!" Lois couldn't leave, she wouldn't!

"Sir!" Jenkins announced. "There's movement."

The guns trained in the direction indicated, indeed hearing the sound of heavy footsteps.

Lois was pushed behind Sheriff Miller and the others, stumbling slightly, alert as the sound grew closer...closer...until...

...Chloe and Dean hobbled around the corner, both looking bruised, bloody and beaten, limping and leaning on the other for support.

Relief soared through Lois as she pushed passed the Sheriff and his deputies, wrapping her arms around her shaking cousin. Chloe wrapped her free arm around Lois' waist, crying into her neck, while still keeping her sustaining arm around Dean.

Lois held on tightly and cried in relief.

Chloe was alive.

For now that was all that mattered.

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The sheriff and his deputies had followed the directions to Goodnight's body, taking him out in a body bag while looking incredibly uneasy, and then had followed Chloe and Dean's directions to the shrine where they found the rest of the bodies. With everyone accounted for, including the mass murderer, the survivors were taken to the Smallville clinic to be taken care of, most of them having minor injuries. Dean was definitely the worst off with two cracked ribs.

The deputies had taken their statements there in the clinic, knowing it was best for them to have this sorted with quickly. Already the media seemed to have caught wind of the story and were storming the hospital's parking lot.

Pete and Trevor's parents were quick to come to their children's side, Sean and Jenna's parents not so lucky as to have children to embrace tightly in relief. Derek's mother was from Smallville too but too sickly to come herself, so his younger sister arrived.

In the end, even as he bathed in Gabe Sullivan's bathroom later that night, Dean couldn't get rid of the scent of death all around him. He couldn't forget the screams of the family members who'd learnt they'd lost their loved ones.

He also couldn't forget the things Margaret had told him while holding that bloodied knife. Even now he didn't fully understand her and Goodnight's(her son?) role in everything, or how they tied in with Moira Sullivan. He didn't get the connection between Chloe and his own mother. As far as he knew his _father_ was the one who'd dabbled with the supernatural _after_ Mary's death.

Her death had been the catalyst...

...or so he'd always thought.

If what Margaret had said was true, then there was more to it than just that. His mother was supposedly "tainted" because of something she'd done for his father. But what?

It obviously was connected with Chloe somehow, and Dean leaned under the shower, letting the warm water cascade down his head and back as he replayed every single interaction he'd ever had with the tiny blonde. He couldn't think of one instance in which she'd "tainted" herself for him.

The hunter froze, remembering her mentioning that she'd tried distracting that asshole so he wouldn't kill him.

That couldn't be it right?

The rape hadn't gone through.

Jesus.

Dean's hands on the tiles clenched in fists.

The poor kid was going to become terrified of men if this kept up.

First Hathaway, then the nameless fuck in California, and now Goodnight? Dean still couldn't understand how she could stand touching _him_ after that horrible experience!

_This is gonna fuck her up so much more_.

He slammed his fist into the tiles in frustration before turning off the water in irritation and shoving the shower curtain aside as he gingerly stepped out of the shower. His ribs were killing him, but he ignored them as best as he could, reaching for a towel and wrapping it around his hips as he emerged from the bathroom into the barely used room of Gabriel Sullivan.

A spike of fury surged through him at the man.

How could he leave these girls here all alone like this after everything that'd happened?

Did he honestly not give a shit?

Speaking of fathers...

Dean took in a deep breath as he limped towards the phone by the bedside, sitting down as he dialed his father's number. He needed to talk to the man and-.

"Who the hell is this and how did you get this number?" John Winchester's gruff voice growled unwelcomingly.

"It's me. Dean." He didn't know why he felt the need to add his name.

"Where the _hell_ have you been boy?" John Winchester snapped. "I've been calling you for hours. I need your ass in Franklin, Virginia. This hunt's more than we expected and we need your help."

"Dad, I-." Dean tried.

"_Now_ Dean. People are dying here." John interrupted. "Call me once you're in the city's limits so I can give you directions to where we are."

And with that he hung up.

Dean gazed at the phone's handle for a second before slamming it into the receiver with a curse.

Apparently he wasn't going to get any answers unless he saw the man face to face.

He brought his hand to his stomach, wincing at the thought of all that driving while his ribs were this painful, but facing John Winchester's wrath would be worse.

"Goddammit!" He hissed, laying back on the bed, staring at the ceiling.

He'd hoped to stick around a little longer this time.

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Lois was doing her best not to be overbearing and to give her cousin the space she needed. It was hard though, especially when all she wanted to do was hold the blonde tightly and ask her to tell her everything that'd happened. The fact that Chloe's clothes had been torn the way they had had filled Lois with dread, but she'd pulled back her own need.

They'd both bathed and were in the living room, Chloe in sweat pants and a baggy shirt, hugging her knees to her chest and staring unseeingly at the television. Lois sat on the same sofa, pretending to watch the show as well, while sending her cousin quick looks out of the corner of her eyes.

She had to admit that she wasn't calm and collected either. Every time there was a noise or a movement around the windows she jumped. Chloe noticed it and reached out to squeeze her hand, giving her support and comfort in her own way despite the trauma so very visible in her eyes.

Lois held back tears and squeezed her cousin's hand back.

When Adam arrived the brunette had to admit that she was ecstatic to see him, hugging him tightly and finding comfort and relief in his embrace. He was exactly what she needed right now, and she'd let him sit down between her and Chloe on the sofa, listening to him as the brunet asked her cousin soft questions.

Chloe, hugging her knees to her chest once more, gave him a small smile and nodded her answer.

Adam reached out to touch her hair.

Chloe flinched away, and then guilt was visible in her eyes.

Adam frowned at her, worry visible in his blue orbs as they narrowed on her. "Who's up for something sweet?"

Chloe blinked in confusion, her smile wobbly. "You brought something sweet?"

"It's in my car." He nodded, standing once more and sending Lois a look. "Will you help me get the bags out?"

"Bags?" Lois asked in surprise, following him outside to where his car was parked next to Dean's. "Just how many things did you-?"

And then she was pulled into a tight hug, Adam trembling slightly as he held on, breathing in the scent of her hair.

"I should have come with you."

Something lodged itself in her throat as she hugged him back, hiding her face in his shirt. "You mightn't have made it if you did."

"I could have protected-."

Lois hugged him tighter, fighting the urge to break down and bawl her eyes out. She had to be strong. She-.

"You don't have to be strong." Adam whispered into her hair. "Not right now. Not with me."

Slowly she felt her resolve cracking, and before she even knew what was happening Lois found herself sobbing brokenly into his shirt, letting all the fear and uncertainty she'd felt in that godforsaken house just crash out of her in a tidal wave of emotion.

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Letting the curtain slip between her fingers and cover the window, Chloe felt the guilt clawing at her soul as she turned her back on the scene of Lois broken down, crying into Adam's arms. Tears filled those green eyes as Chloe hugged herself, feeling shittier than she ever had. It was her fault that Lois had had to go through what she had, and she was never going to forgive herself for making her cousin cry as inconsolably as she was.

Hearing footsteps coming down the stairs, Chloe wiped at her tears rapidly and cleared her throat, turning in time to see Dean stepping off of the last step, his bag of things in his hand.

Her stomach crashed to her feet.

"You're leaving?" Was that her voice sounding so pathetically vulnerable?

He hesitated, clearing his throat as he came closer, dropping his bag to the ground. "My father needs my help in Virginia."

"Oh." She hugged herself, forcing herself to smile, hating the fact that she knew it was wobbly. "I-is it wise to drive with your ribs like they are?"

He flinched, rubbing behind his head. "It's not going to be a joy ride, but I've managed longer drives on worse injuries."

"Oh." Again that was all she could come up with.

He nodded, gaze sliding away from her to the now empty sofa. "Where's Lois?"

"Outside with Adam." She hugged herself tighter. "He brought some stuff so she's helping him bring them in."

"Oh." His gaze went to her bandaged feet. "You should really be off of them."

She nodded. "Yeah, I should."

An awkward silence stretched between them before Dean finally cleared his throat and grabbed his bag. "I, uh, should probably be going."

"Right." She nodded, gaze going to her feet. "Sorry about you losing the weapons you took to the castle."

Dean shrugged. "I can always find replacements."

"Sure." Chloe realized she was stalling and scolded herself for it. "Drive safely, okay?"

He nodded, hesitating only a second before heading towards the front door and walking outside, closing the door behind him.

Chloe went to the sofa and threw herself on it, bringing her hands to her face.

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Dean felt like the biggest douche in the history of douchedom.

As he trudged towards his 'Pala Dean kept his head up and tried not to feel like he was doing the same thing that Gabriel Sullivan did, leaving these girls to fend for themselves. Unlike Gabriel Dean didn't have a commitment to Chloe and Lois, had no obligation to stay and keep them safe.

And he needed to talk to his father. He needed things cleared. He—he needed to leave if he was going to clear up some of the things that were going through his mind.

As he neared the parked cars he barely noticed Lois and Adam yank away from each other, the brunette wiping at her eyes frantically.

"You're leaving?"

He had no reason to feel guilty.

He didn't.

"Yeah, my dad needs me." He nodded, opening the back seat and throwing his things in it.

"Should you be driving with your injuries?" Adam surprised him by asking, frowning in genuine concern.

_See? I'm not leaving them alone. They've got this guy looking out for them. They don't need me._

"Yeah, I'm fine." Dean nodded, closing the door and turning towards them. "I left my father's number in the bedroom, you guys can get in contact with me on that line if you need anything."

Lois hugged him, being careful not to hurt his ribs. "Thank you so much for everything, _again_."

He hugged her awkwardly, patting her back. "It's okay. Take care of yourself and the kiddo."

"Of course." Her voice broke as she pulled away, giving him a wobbly smile. "Though I think we all know I haven't been doing an exemplary job of it so far."

"That's a lie." Adam frowned.

Lois shook her head, sighing, hugging herself. "Take care Dean."

This wasn't his business.

It _wasn't_.

Nodding, Dean got into the 'Pala and started her engine before backing out onto the street and speeding away.

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Something was making a noise in the kitchen.

Terror filled her and she wanted to scream, wanted to hide, wanted to run out to where Lois and the others were.

_No! You can't be scared at every single sound_!

Taking in a deep breath, Chloe fought her shivers of terror as she slowly made her way towards the kitchen, flicking the light on, biting back a scream when she saw a male figure by the back door. She fought every instinct and walked towards the door slowly, whimpering, shivering, before turning the blinds to reveal...Wade.

Letting out a cry of relief, Chloe's hand went to her heart as she unlocked and yanked open the door. "What the hell? You nearly gave me a heart attack!"

"Come out here for a bit." Wade motioned with his chin towards the back before turning and walking there.

Narrowing her eyes in confusion, Chloe sighed and went to the kitchen, writing on the pad on the fridge letting Lois know where she was, before slipping out the back door and into the shadowed back yard. She hugged herself as she ventured towards the tree, where Wade was leaning against.

"How are you?" Wade asked, hands in his jacket's pocket, a lit cigarette between his lips.

"Better now that I know you're not some psycho killer." She replied, standing in front of him. "How are _you_?"

"Sick of this fucking place." He blew out a wall of smoke in frustration. "My best friends are dead."

Her heart hurt for him, knowing that Scott and Derek were all Wade had, just like her and Lois. She could understand the pain he must be going through right now and it tore at her.

The blonde gulped, hesitating for a couple of seconds before finally reaching out and placing her hand on his arm, rubbing it. "I'm sorry."

He nodded, not looking at her. "I'm leaving here and I'm never coming back."

"_What_?" She turned towards him in shock, eyes widening. "_When_?"

"Now." He replied, staring up at the heavens as he blew out another breath of smoke. "All my shit's in my car." Throwing the cigarette to the ground, he crushed it with his shoe before turning towards her. "Wanna come with?"

The blonde blinked. "You're asking me to leave with you?"

"Wouldn't be the first time." He announced pointblank. "You want to leave, you know you hate it here. Come with me. We can forget about this fucking place and everything that happened here. We can put our past behind us and never have to ever think about it ever again."

Chloe stared up into his face silently.

She was tempted.

Dammit!

She wanted to say yes!

She wanted to put Smallville in her rearview mirror and forget all about it and everything. She wanted to be someone else with different problems. She wanted to forget.

But she couldn't.

No matter how much she wanted to.

She owed Lois so much, and refused to repay her with that level of shittiness.

Wade sighed, reading her face. "You're going to regret staying here."

"I will." She agreed sadly.

Wade trailed down the tree, sitting on the ground.

She followed suit, sitting next to him in silence.

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"What am I going to do Adam?" Lois whispered, leaning against his car, trying to get herself together, composed, before going back into the house. "I don't know how to raise her, especially not with all the shit that keeps happening to her! And I'm never able to protect her! I'm failing her at every turn!"

"You're not _failing_ her, Lois. She just has issues, and you're doing your best to help her through them." Adam reached out to brush a lock of hair out of her face. "Maybe...maybe she should start taking meds."

"No." Lois shook her head. "No meds. I don't want her all drugged up all the time! There has to be a way that-."

"Ah, this is very fortunate." An unfamiliar voice announced, causing both Adam and Lois to turn towards the road, seeing a man standing there.

"Can we help you?" Adam frowned, moving himself slightly in front of Lois protectively.

"Yes, you can." The man smirked.

Lois pushed away from the car, feeling cold chills running up and down her spine. "Who are you?"

"I usually don't entertain mud monkeys or their demands, but considering I'm in a good mood at this moment I'll oblige." He sneered as he came towards them, menace in his every step. "You may call me Uriel."

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**Next chapter will be last...**


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: Don't own Smallville or Supernatural...or See No Evil.

Sequel to: Hallowed Ground

A year has passed since the events in "Hallowed Ground" so age-wise our main cast are as follows:

Lois Lane - 19 years old

Chloe Sullivan - 15 years old

Dean Winchester -23 years old

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She straddled his hips, lips moving against his with just as much need and fervor, with just as much desire to-even if only for a couple of minutes-forget everything they'd gone through. A part of her was sickened, flashes of Goodnight, Hathaway, _Spencer_, all racing before her, but she pushed them away, trying to concentrate on Wade. He needed this as much as she did.

Chloe whimpered as his grip on her tightened, a streak of fear rushing up at her as she felt horribly trapped.

_No. No. No._

Closing her eyes tighter, Chloe kissed Wade harder, fighting her growing sense of terror.

Wade tore the back of her shirt with the force in which he was holding it...the sound echoing taunting in her mind, once again that damned trio of psychopaths being pushed to the forefront of her mind, as well as their attacks.

Nausea grew intense, and she felt unable to breathe.

Crying out, unable to handle it anymore, Chloe pushed at Wade desperately before falling off of his lap and crouching on the grass as she coughed, gasping for breath. Her stomach was completely empty or she might be vomiting right now. As it was she fought for breath, the sound of her own racing heart echoing in her ears, drowning out any sound around her.

Wade leaned against the tree, running his hand through his hair.

"Sorry." She whispered, bent over, ashamed and afraid.

He sighed, knocking his head against the tree trunk a couple of times. "You're not going to get any better here. You're getting worse."

It felt like a slap on the face because it was true.

She lowered her head further.

"Come away with me."

She closed her eyes tightly. "I can't."

"You _won't_." The voice was accusing.

"I won't." She agreed, keeping her eyes closed tightly. "I'm going to do my best to overcome all of this, and if I can't...there's a place in Star City that's supposed to deal with people like me without just meds. Something like treating the root of the issue. If things don't work out here with counseling...I'll go there."

There was silence. "Star City?"

She nodded.

"I have an uncle there." He murmured thoughtfully for a moment before finally standing to his feet. "I'll call in from time to time. Don't give a shit if your cousin answers anymore."

Finally Chloe opened her eyes and turned towards him. "Try not to get into too much trouble."

He snorted, offering her his hand. "That's like saying that to _you_."

Her lips twitched as she accepted his help to her feet. "You've got a point there."

He shook his head, smiling sadly at her. "See you when you're legal." Winking, he let go and headed towards the fence, effortlessly swinging himself over it and onto the other side.

Obviously they needed a taller fence.

"I thought you weren't ever coming back to Smallville?" She called after his retreating figure.

"I'm not!" He replied with a chuckle, lighting up another cigarette as he continued walking away.

Hugging herself tightly, Chloe watched him until he turned the corner and disappeared from sight. She sighed, a part of her wishing she was going too, another part of her knowing that it wouldn't be fair on anyone if she did. She seriously needed to work through her issues if she wanted to be around _anyone_.

It was time to come clean to Lois about everything, especially about the California trip.

Hearing the phone ringing, she raced inside.

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**YOU ARE NOW LEAVING SMALLVILLE **

The sign was up ahead and seemed condemning.

AC/DC blared in the Impala, but not even his favorite songs could keep Dean from feeling shitty and annoyed. When the hell had he allowed himself to get this fond of someone who wasn't his family? This was being weak, hadn't his father told him that over and over again? Civilians were to be helped and then forgotten. That was it. The only ones that mattered were family. And the hunt.

Plus, he needed to do this. He _needed_ to see his father. Not only did John Winchester need him, but John was the only one who had the answers to all the questions driving Dean nearly inside.

'_You're leaving?'_ A flash of Chloe's wide eyes condemned him further.

Cursing, Dean slammed the heel of his palm into the steering wheel as he pressed down on the acceleration, going faster, passing the sign lightning fast and leaving Smallville, Kansas in his rearview mirror.

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The ringing had stopped before she could get to the phone, but Chloe didn't have time to call for Lois and ask her why she hadn't gotten it considering she could hear movement upstairs in the house. No. Chloe was stopped from doing so because a figure manifested in her backyard, visible through the open back door, golden eyes staring at her.

The blonde went to the doorway and motioned for him to wait as she dashed through the house, hurrying up the stairs and passed Lois' room, where she could hear movement. A part of her wondered if Adam was in there with the brunette, and she made a mental note not to bother them as she finally made it to her bedroom and grabbed the book she'd managed to bring with her from the Luthor castle.

Turning back around, Chloe made her way downstairs and outside, closing the door behind her as she sent a look in the direction of Lois' room, seeing the light on and a figure through the closed curtains doing something she couldn't make out.

Shaking her head, the blonde motioned for Azazel to follow her, not wanting him to be seen by her cousin. They used the fence in the back and walked off, side by side, until finally they were in a section which was fairly isolated.

"Here." She handed the demon the book, hugging herself when he finally had it in his hands. "People died."

"I heard." What surprised her was the storm in his eyes. "There wasn't supposed to be anyone there. Otherwise you wouldn't have been sent to retrieve it."

She believed him.

And that made her wary because _why_ should he care if she was in danger or not?

"It's blank...but it's still important, isn't it?"

He eyed her before nodding.

She didn't ask him why it was important...she didn't want to know if he'd answer her or not. "So just Lex Luthor...and this is over."

"Your part of the deal will have been completed." He nodded, tightening his hold on the book before disappearing in the blinking of an eye.

Sighing, never going to be used to that, Chloe turned and hurried back to the house, really not wanting to be outside in the dark by herself. As she got closer she could hear the phone once more, and Lois' light was off in her bedroom, but she ignored that as she hurried inside and raced to the phone in the kitchen, yanking it off of the receiver just before the last ring.

"Hello?" She gasped, breathless.

"Chloe?" A female voice asked in surprise before sighing in relief. "I was starting to get worried too! He's been frantic saying that you were in danger and that-!"

Suddenly the phone was yanked from her hand and a male voice could be heard. "Chloe? Are you okay?"

"Did you...did you have a dream?" She asked, voice choking.

"Yeah." He let out a little breath. "In it you're in danger and there's this guy, who was supposed to be dead, but we _both_ know the luck you have when it comes to supposedly dead guys, I mean look at the whole Spencer thing, I just-."

"Jacob Goodnight." She leaned against the wall and closed her eyes. "You dreamt of Jacob Goodnight."

There was silence, and then his voice like steel. "What happened?"

She grabbed a chair and sat down. "Basically what you probably dreamt. But he's been put down. Again. Though the way his head was destroyed I think this time it was for good."

"Chloe-." He started.

"I'm _fine_ Sam." Chloe interrupted, hearing Jess in the background asking what was going on and if they should be getting a ticket for Kansas. "Don't you guys ruin your weekend. I'm fine. I just need to sleep for a couple of days and then things will be back to normal."

There was a little argument, some shuffling, and then a beep as she was placed on speakerphone.

"We don't mind." Sam started.

"If you didn't answer our next phone call we were going to come anyway." Jess agreed.

"Thanks you guys." Chloe smiled softly. "It means a lot to me to know I have friends like you guys in my corner." She then cleared her throat. "Dean was here, you know. Did you see him in your dream?"

There was a moment, and then Sam squeaked. "No."

"Dean was _there_?" Jess was equally surprised. "Man! I still haven't met him you know! I really want to!"

"_Jess_." Sam groaned.

"Seriously Sam, I haven't met anyone in your family, and you can't use the hunting excuse anymore. I _know_." Jess grumbled.

Sam sighed.

Chloe snorted. "Can we just focus on Sam's dream for a second? I mean, it can't be a coincidence anymore, right? They _are_ premonitions."

"Right." Jess agreed. "Baby, you're _psychic_."

Sam groaned. "Don't say that. I'm _not_ a psychic."

"You so totally are." She snickered.

Chloe smiled softly as she listened to those two. "If you ever see any lotto numbers..."

"Screw. You." Sam grumbled.

Chloe and Jess broke into laughter at his expense.

Finally Sam even had to join in.

The three of them joked some more until the questions as to how she was took over, and she assured them time and time again that she was okay and so was Dean.

"If you need anything-." Sam began.

"I know." She whispered.

"You better." Jess declared.

"I _do_." She assured them. "Now stop worrying about me and go screw or something."

"Dear god." Sam groaned in embarrassment.

"Yes ma'am!" Jess giggled evilly.

With shared goodbyes she hung up and shook her head. "Lois! Adam! Where are you guys?" She got up and went to the living room, finding it empty. Her eyes narrowed as she went to the window and gazed out to see Adam's car gone.

Why had he left?

Shaking her head, Chloe headed up the stairs. "Where did Adam go?" She hurried to Lois' room and opened the door, turning on the light, frowning when she saw the empty bed. "Lois?"

An envelope rested on the bed.

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"It's done." Uriel announced, flicking invisible lint from his suit. "The cousin has been taken care of."

Azazel nodded, clutching the book in his hand. "The Asset?"

"Wasn't in the house at the time." The angel replied. "She doesn't know what happened."

Azazel nodded once more. "Things are slowly getting back to the Original Path...or as close as it can get."

"Just make sure to not mess things with _this_ Asset or I _will_ take this operation over." Uriel sneered before disappearing with a flash of lightning and a hint of thunder.

Azazel raised an eyebrow. "What an unlikable guy."

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**_Chloe,_**

**_I'm so sorry. I can't even look you in the eyes right now and I'm doing this the cowardly way. I feel like such a horrible person but I can't handle this._**

**_I can't handle this._**

**_I've tried, Chloe. I have. But we both know that I haven't been enough. I've let you down over and over again and I'm letting you down now once more. It'll killing me to know that I'm such a failure to both you and myself._**

**_I thought I could do this, that I could be strong enough for the both of us, but tonight proved to me that I can't. I'm about to break myself and I need to get away. I need time to myself, I need to heal, need to think._**

**_I know you're not going to hate me for this, that you're going to understand, and that makes me feel even worse. I'm letting you down again and you're not going to even hold it against me. I wish you would._**

**_I love you Chloe. I do. Please don't think that this is because I'm sick of you or your issues...but I'm overwhelmed by them. I've had my own issues, even before Hope, and I need to be able to deal with them before even trying to tackle your monumental ones as well._**

**_Sorry._**

**_Don't worry about me, Adam's going to take care of me and make sure that I don't do anything stupid. You know he's going to be all serious about that like he always is. He really cares about me...maybe this is what I need to see him for what he really is and stop pretending I'm not stringing him along. I don't know._**

**_I called Uncle Gabe and left him a voicemail so he knows what's going on. He should be calling you soon to let you know if you're to move with him wherever he is or if he's coming back to take care of you here instead._**

**_I need time, Chlo._**

**_I'm so sorry._**

**_I love you so much._**

**_Please don't doubt that._**

**_I love you...I just can't be with you anymore. Not for right now at least._**

**_I'll get in contact with you when I'm ready for it, and I hope that it'll be soon but I can't promise anything._**

**_Please take care._**

**_I love you._**

**_Lois_**

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"You've reached the Sullivan Residence. For some reason we can't get to the phone, or we've seen your Caller I.D. and are avoiding you." Chloe's voice declared mischievously. "Either way, leave a message."

BEEP.

"Chloe, it's me, dad." The demon wearing Gabriel Sullivan's skin cleared his throat as he walked down the street. "I got a call from Lois, said something about her leaving town with her boyfriend?" He raised an eye at a prostitute, thinking she'd seen her better days, before remembering he was on a call. "Honey, I'm in the middle of some important business but as soon as I can spare a minute I'll be there okay? It might be a while though, just warning you. I'll keep sending you money so don't worry about that, you'll be well provided for. These meetings are just too important to me and I can't leave, no matter what."

A couple of drunken college kids passed him.

Gazing at the pretty redhead, he smirked before deciding to cut it short. "I'll get into contact again when I'm free to talk. I have to go see someone right now. Bye, love you."

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Sitting on the sofa, in the darkened living room, Chloe hugged her knees to her chest as she stared unseeingly at the television. Her father's voice clicked off as the message ended, Lois' opened letter on the side table, and Chloe's pillow and blanket on the sofa. If she didn't feel so numb at the moment she'd be terrified, but the blonde couldn't feel anything as she stared at the infomercials, silent tears making their way down her cheeks.

She was alone.

She was truly alone.

It was late in the night, and the only sound other than the peppy people on the TV trying to sell things were the cars passing by, but they were all on mute for her.

The blonde curled up on the sofa, stupidly afraid to be in her own bedroom, feeling slightly safer here on the last place she'd been with Lois and the others. If she stayed down here she could fool herself into believing that Lois was in her room, and that Chloe was just having a sleepless night in front of the TV.

It was better this way, especially for Lois. Hadn't Chloe always thought that her cousin didn't deserve to be stuck with her like this? Finally Lois had figured it out herself.

At least Lois was with Adam and wouldn't be alone.

Alone.

Chloe huddled under the blanket, lips trembling, _body_ trembling at the very word.

Alone.

That's what happened to people like her.

People who were so _fucked up_.

People left.

They _left_.

Closing her eyes tightly, Chloe let herself slide down sideways as her head hit the pillow.

Thunder and lightning clashed above violently.

Shaking, the blonde pulled the blanket over her head.

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"It's this place!" Mrs. Ross announced, her voice angered and shrill even from the other side of the door.

"Honey-." Mr. Ross tried.

Pete leaned against the door to his bedroom, able to hear his parents arguing easily.

"Don't 'honey' me! Our son nearly died tonight! He's always in danger! There's something wrong with this place!" Mrs. Ross snarled. "I refuse to allow this to go on any longer! We're going to move!"

"My job-." Mr. Ross tried.

"You don't seem to get me." Mrs. Ross growled. "Pete and I are moving. Whether you're coming with us is entirely up to you."

A door slammed shut.

Closing his eyes, Pete sighed.

-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-v-

_"The itsy bitsy spider ran up the water spout." Spencer's fingers trailed up her thigh as he sung. "Down came the rain and washed the spider out." He shifted so his palm was now flush against her skin and making its way up her inner thigh. "My little virgin."_

_"Please..." she cried, trying to fight the leather binds around her wrists keeping them up above her head. "Please don't..."_

_He ignored her, his bright blue eyes stared down at her as he continued to hum, cupping her intimately with his hand._

_Chloe cried, horrified and ashamed, turning her head away as he leaned forwards and sucked on her neck. "Please!"_

_Chuckling he pulled away, morphing into Jacob Goodnight, his grip on her painful as he grabbed her underwear and tore it._

_"No!" Chloe screamed._

_Jacob Goodnight morphed into Preacher Hathaway as he freed himself from his pants. "The Lord's work **will** be done!"_

...

"Please stop! No!" She screamed, crying, fighting with the shadowed figure holding her by her shadows and leaning over her. "Please don't! Please! PLEASE!"

"_CHLOE_!" The gruff voice was harsh, as was the shake. "Wake up goddamn it!"

Going still, Chloe stared up at the shadow-covered man, emotions a wreck. "_Dean_?"

Letting out a little sigh, Dean pulled away and turned to the table. "Where's the light switch? You broke the lamp with all your thrashing."

The blonde sat up on the sofa, the night thundering outside as she shakily motioned in the direction of the light switch.

The shadowed figure moved to the light switch and turned on the light to reveal Dean Winchester standing in her living room. His face was pinched and drawn, pale, his eyes narrowed and disturbed. He wore the same clothes he had when he'd left hours ago, although he was now somewhat wet, probably from the rain outside.

The door swung open with the wind.

Her gaze went to it in confusion.

Dean flinched, bringing his hand to his wet hair. "I might have kicked it in when I heard the screaming."

"_You came back_?" Her voice wobbled as her gaze returned to him, filling with tears.

He cleared his throat, looking towards the door. "I made it to Metropolis before turning back. Called Bobby and told him to go help dad, that I had something I had to do." He cleared his throat once more. "Figured only an utter douche would leave you two here by yourselves when obviously you were-."

"_You came back_." Chloe yanked the blanket off of herself and got to her feet, emotions rolling inside of her as stormy as the night outside. "_**You came back**."_

There must have been something in her voice because Dean finally turned to look at her with narrowed eyes. "Chloe?"

The blonde collapsed to her knees, the tears returning as she cried.

Cursing, Dean stalked towards her, hesitating a couple of seconds before cursing once more and lowering to his own knees. "Where's Lois, Chloe? She would have heard those screams. I did and I was sleeping in the 'Pala waiting for morning."

Chloe raised her tear-stained face and stared into his own pale one before throwing herself into him, wrapping her arms around his neck as she cried into his neck. She trembled like crazy and felt like she had no strength at all in her body, yet she held onto Dean like to life itself.

Dean went tense immediately, his hands at his sides.

"_Chloe_?" His voice was hella choked.

She couldn't answer, merely crying harder.

Slowly, unsurely, warm arms wrapped around her, holding her tight.

Outside, the storm slowly began to die down, although thunder in the distance promised it was far from over.

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**The End?**


End file.
